When We Were Young
by ebonyflower12905
Summary: JELSA AU. What we have is like broken wings on cracked pavement. Barely breathing, feathers lifting only when the winds of fate and destiny blow. Left alone, abandoned, ignored by everyone stepping around us. They don't feel our pain. What we have is dying on its own, but at the same time still yearning to be bandaged.
1. Chapter 1

**Elsa's POV:**

I remember when I first met Jackson Overland Frost. We were at the park on a December morning, and I was just a five year old little girl, hiding behind my mother's leg, being the shy person I always was. He was standing in front of his uncle, grinning and waiting patiently for me, being the cheerful and carefree guy he was. My mother urged me to talk to him, saying that we were the same age, we were going to attend the same school so I'd have to talk to him anyway, but I stayed there, refusing to move. She sighed and walked over to the benches to take a seat, and I of course, had my cover blown. I was so nervous, shaking, actually, but Jack was nice and friendly. I looked at him for more than two seconds for once. He had blue eyes, like me, but his hair was white like falling snowflakes, or as all the other girls at school would gush dreamily, like 'freshly fallen snow'. That is, except for Anna, my younger sister, who said it was like the color of the white Christmas she's been hoping for her entire life. She thinks this year is her lucky year, it's her sweet 16.

We started with the common greetings, hellos, and how do you dos.

Then he asked, "You're not cold, right?" looking at my jeans and sweater in the below freezing weather.

I shook my head. "This sweater isn't as thin as it looks, and besides, the cold never bothered me anyway."

He gave me his widest smile yet. "Same here."

That surprised me. I was the only one in my family who didn't mind the cold and didn't bother dressing in layers or wearing earmuffs. I was relieved there was someone that was like me.

I smiled, too. My smile must've been as wide as his, because not long later, we were running around the playground, having fun. We were sliding down the poles pretending we were firefighters like his uncle, being rebels and running up the slides, particularly the curving slides, those were the difficult ones. The first time we tried to go up that slide, he let me go up first. I took slow steps up the slippery metal.

"Remember to hold onto the sides, Elsa!" he said.

I nodded and put my hands on the metal sides before proceeding up the slide. I started making progress on the slide, carefully stepping along the curves of it, and soon enough I was almost at the top. My legs were wobbling, my heart was pounding, and my small hands were getting clammy. Suddenly, a figure appeared at the top of the slide. Jack. He extended a hand, and I took it. I smiled, he was going to help me get to the top! That wasn't the case. With his other hand, he started tickling me, and I immediately slipped down. Fortunately, I dragged him with me, and we both tumbled to the bottom of the slide. He was laughing hysterically, and I was utterly mad at him. I started tickling him, getting some revenge. His laughter was now uncontrollable, and he was gasping for breaths, shouting for me to stop tickling him. When I finally stopped, he slowly got up, and challenged me to a race to the swings. We ran. I won. When he claimed he let me win, I laughed.

"Oh please, why would anyone do that?" I asked, trying to catch my breath.

He didn't answer. Instead he got on a swing and spun around in circles, creating twists in the links holding the swing set together.

"What are you doing?"

"Watch," he simply replied. I was surprised I actually got an answer this time, but nonetheless, I watched.

He stopped turning in circles and let his feet come off the ground. The swing twirled around untamed speed, undoing all the twists in the links. Jack chuckled when he stopped spinning, looking extremely goofy, and of course, dizzy. It wasn't long before we were both spinning around uncontrollably, looking goofy and dizzy. We did this thing which we called a Banana Split. We would both turn and twist and then carefully lock our feet together, count down from three, and let go of each other, both of us swirling around crazily.

Just thinking about it now was making me smile.

But that's just how bittersweet it was.

I'm just in my bedroom reminiscing about happy memories with him, but he's out of my life right now. He's gone. Not shot dead gone, but pulled away by the unfair winds of fate and destiny gone. We're still close, neighbors even, but we're separated by years of nothingness. You can say so close and yet so far. Best friends when we were young, but then we just drifted further and further apart, and now, I don't know what we are. I probably spent the past couple of years trying to figure it out, but I still have no idea.

Even now, when I'm lying on my bed listening to classical tunes on my iPod, Jackson Overland Frost has me completely lost and disconcerted.

I sighed and sat up on my bed to continue working on my physics homework, which was a mixed review of the topics we have covered so far. I sat with one leg dangling off the edge of the bed, the other tucked under the first. My earphone brought a cello piece, which I recognized to be Exposition by Takenobu, to make homework more bearable. A sound wave has a frequency of 4700 Hz and travels along a steel rod… easy, the answer is 5200 m/s.

Soon after, I finished my homework, and I proceeded to remove my earphones and immediately allowed myself to fall backwards, hoping to sneak in a nap before dinner. That didn't happen. I thought I could get some quiet, napping time, but instead, seconds after I removed my earphones, I was greeted by noise. Lots of noise. It wasn't because I was being called for dinner, though I was being called.

"Elsa!"

Anna. I got up and walked over to her bedroom.

"Yes?"

"Ooh, goodie, you're here. Come on. Get over here!" she said giddily.

I smiled and went over to where she was standing by the window.

"Look, over there, by the holly tree," she said, pointing.

I looked, and under the tree, I saw none other than Jackson Overland Frost, by the trunk of the holly tree, him and his friends sitting in a circle in his backyard. I saw Anna give me a strange look.

"What?"

"Come on, you know you want to be there, next to him, doing whatever they're doing."

I rolled my eyes. "Why would you think that?" I paused. "I haven't spoken to Jack in years."

Because simply thinking about him brings back memories and tears. Being with him would just bring millions of never ending storms and cloudy days.

"Oh please, I know that you guys were once best friends, go talk to him."

I raised an eyebrow. Once. Years ago, we were best friends, though it felt like eons.

"Well you like him, right?"

"As a person, sure, but as a love interest, no."

Now she was the one rolling her eyes. I playfully poked her in the stomach and she squirmed.

She looked back outside, grinning. Suddenly, her smile faded.

"What's wrong?"

"Gee, it's super cold outside, how can they just sit there hanging out?"

"It's 39 degrees outside. It's not that bad."

"39 degrees?" she cried out. "Brrrrrrrr."

She shivered, then said, "Well, what do you think they're doing?"

"It looks like they have some food and drinks, probably snacking, but they also have their textbooks out, so either doing homework together, or studying in a group."

I looked over at Anna before continuing, "Which is what you should be doing," and pulling her back to her desk.

"Aw, you're no fun."

She sighed and sat down, plunging back into a complicated mess of numbers and equations. As I closed her bedroom door, she teasingly yelled, "Killjoy!"

"I heard that!"

I could hear her giggles as I laughed too, and went back to my room. I loved my sister, she's such a playful and energetic person, and I'm lucky to always have her by my side.

Dinner was probably going to be ready soon, so I decided to read. I pulled out a book from my backpack but before heading upstairs to the attic, I sat by the window, looking back at Jack and his friends. One of his friends said something, and he started laughing hysterically. Must've been something really funny. I sighed. Well it looks like he's having a lot of fun, and that's good to know. It's hard for me when Jack's upset, and thankfully he's almost always in a good mood. I remember we used to hang out in his backyard, making s'mores over the firepit, rocking back and forth on the hammock, just enjoying each other's presence. Those days were long gone. I turned away from the window, got up and walked to the attic.

When we first moved in, it was mainly used for storage. We basically put all of the unpacked items in the attic. Some parts of the attic were just plain dead space, so Dad decided to make use of it. There was this section of the attic that he turned into a book nook (with a large bookcase) for me, and I found myself going there almost everyday. The nook was right by the attic window, so it was the optimal spot for reading. There's plenty of natural light, and it's also rather cozy since Dad added plenty of pillows and cushions, and even a small mattress to the nook to make it comfortable.

I sighed, remembering that Jack used to come up here with me. We'd choose our books and just sit here, reading. Sometimes he'd bring a jigsaw puzzle that we'd work on together for hours. On gloomy, rainy days, we'd go down to the basement instead and watch a movie. I missed those days. Staying up past bedtime in the basement with Anna and Jack when he slept over, watching our favorite movies and eating tubs and tubs of popcorn. He always brought his sister along, but she of course, had to go to bed earlier than we did. Oh, Emma was one of the cutest little kids out there. She'd put up such a fight when we tried to get her to go to bed. We'd end up letting her stay 10 minutes, tops, past her bedtime before telling her to go to bed. Most of the time, she'd get tired and fall asleep before the 10 minutes was up. I sighed once again before I turned my attention back to the book.

The book I was reading was A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. The school librarian recommended it, and so I started reading it. A lot is going on and the plot is a bit complicated, but it's great.

I read in the peaceful silence before I heard footsteps on the attic ladder.

"Elsa, time for dinner," my mother said.

Without looking up from my book, I mumbled, "Okay."

She turned and headed back downstairs.

I continued reading the book, something big was happening, and I suddenly laughed out loud after reading something cute but funny.

My laughter was cut short by the sound of my mother's stern voice through multiple sets of floorboards.

"Elsa. Dinner. Now."

I hurried down the stairs and walked to the dining table, where my father, mother, and sister were sitting.

"Sorry to keep you guys waiting, it's just that the book was-"

"I know, honey, I loved that book when I read it, too. I was your age," my mom replied, smiling.

I grinned, partly relieved that she didn't scold me, and also surprised that she had read the book. I took my seat next to Anna.

"Let's eat, I'm starving," she said.

I heard her stomach grumbling. "Yeah, I think we can hear just how hungry you are."

"Such a pig," I heard Dad whisper to Mom jokingly.

"Hey! I heard that!" Anna said. "I also heard your stomach growling, too, from across the table. You want to eat just as much as I do!"

"Okay, okay!"

So that's my family. We like to joke around a lot. We're just like any other jolly family. A mother, a father, and two children. The parents aren't separated and they don't fight constantly, either. They love each other very much, no, they adore each other and everything the other does. Anna dreams of finding this kind of love someday. I came close to finding that kind of love years ago, but I doubt the person on the flip side felt the same way I did. But that's okay. I never told him, knowing it would never happen. I gave up on it, stopped waiting and wanting for him to reciprocate my feelings. We grew further and further apart over the years anyway, so it was a good decision after all. Why get your hopes up when you know the storm will never clear out and the rainbow will never appear?

* * *

**I don't own these characters, they belong to Disney and Dreamworks. **

**I got the idea of writing this from a classmate's piece of the same title in our school's anthology (it's called Beyond the Horizon, I know it sounds like a really cliche name, but I didn't come up with it, so...). The summary was based off my friend's poem, To Nurse a Bird (also in the anthology). **


	2. Chapter 2

Jack's POV:

I took a sip from my cup before Hugo started speaking. Bad decision. He chose to tell a joke about the physics homework.

"What did one quantum physicist say when he wanted to fight with another quantum physicist? Let me atom!"

I could feel the apple cider almost come out my nose. I started choking and laughing at the same time. Not because of the joke, but because of a funny thought involving the two physics teachers in a physical fight.

When my friends asked if I was okay, I lightheartedly replied, "I'm fine, I'm fine."

"Gosh, can you imagine Mr. Feldman and Mr. Faulkner fighting?" I asked, naming the two physics teachers at our school.

Everyone started laughing, and Flynn said, "Yeah, Faulkner would win."

"What?" I asked, disbelief in my voice. "No, no. Feldman would beat Faulkner for sure."

Hayley, Bunnymund and Hugo all said they thought Faulkner would win.

"Seriously guys?"

Jamie smiled and patted my back. "Don't worry, I agree with you. Feldman would win. He's actually a pretty buff guy. I've seen him working out in the gym after school."

Hiccup raised his hand, and announced, "I'm with Feldman, too."

I smiled.

"Ha! 4 for Faulkner, 3 for Feldman, Faulkner wins!" Flynn cried out.

"But Hugo always sides with Hayley, I bet he would actually route for Feldman," Hiccup retorted.

Hugo wrapped his arm around Hayley and said, "Hey, I have to agree with my girl."

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me that's the type of thing you have to do when you're in a relationship," he said while fiddling with a gadget he's been working on.

Hayley grinned. "It actually is."

"It's only fitting Hiccup would ask this..." Bunnymund said.

"Because lately he's got his eyes on Astrid," Flynn finished, nudging Hiccup.

"No, it's," I made eye contact with Jamie before we said together, "Astridddddddd!" in our high pitched sing song voices.

Hiccup groaned while the rest of us guffawed over and over again.

He looked over at me, frowning, and all I could think was _hey, at least I didn't tell them that you had a crush on her since the day you first met her in sixth grade. _Yep. Since sixth grade, definitely not just "lately". I can't say I kept the secret, I did tell one person… Jamie Bennett. I simply grinned back at Hiccup.

As usual, me and my friends were over at my place, working on our homework together and hanging out. I looked at my friends who were all smiling, bundled up in layers and layers of clothes since it was winter. Today was one of the warmer days, so we decided to sit in my backyard. E. Aster Bunnymund and Jamie were my closest friends, I've known Hiccup since pre-school, and I met Flynn in second grade. Hugo, obviously was always the jester of the group. Hayley was a tomboy, one of the nicest people I knew, and she was dating Hugo. Jamie, Hugo, Flynn and I were all on the school's hockey team. Bunnymund and Hiccup were more soccer people, but they still attended all the hockey games they could and vice versa. Man, I don't know what I'd do without my buddies, they always have my back. I'm just glad my Uncle North always lets them come over after school.

On that note, North stepped out onto the backyard.

"Guys, hate to end all the fun, but it's getting late. You guys should be heading home."

Hiccup checked his watch. "Woah, yeah, you're right. We should get going."

Everyone got up and picked up their stuff. I gave Jamie and Bunnymund a hug before I waved goodbye as they left. I closed the door, then turned to go back to the backyard.

"Jack!" I heard a familiar voice exclaim, as I felt a pair of arms wrap around me. Emma. She was my little sister, turning 10 in two months. Chuckling, I straightened up and started running around with Emma on my back, holding on and giggling. When I finally put her down, she hugged me and said, "That was fun, do that again!"

Putting on an act, I rubbed my back and said, "Sorry, but that was too tiring, I think you might've broken my back."

She began to pout. "That's because you're an old man!"

"Am not!"

"Of course you are! Your hair is white and now you're complaining about your back hurting!"

Grinning, I picked her up and gave her another piggyback ride.

After dinner and everything, I heard North call me. Darn. I slowly walked down the stairs, hoping my uncle would be kind about the punishment for the last prank (it was on the computer mouse in his office).

"What's up, North?"

He was standing near the doorway rummaging through a drawer.

"I need to go out, there's an emergency. I'll be out for a while, so can you make sure Emma goes to bed on time?"

I nodded. "Of course." I was silently cheering on the inside. He didn't find out!

"Oh, and Jack."

I gulped.

"Can you do me another favor and wash the dishes?"

Before I could reply, he left and shut the door behind him. I locked the door. Well, he didn't find out, but I'm still doing dishes. I checked the time. 9:12.

I made my way over to the kitchen, sighing in relief when I saw less things to wash than usual. When I was done, I went upstairs to Emma's bedroom, where I saw her writing in a notebook of some sort.

"Emma? Lights out, it's time to sleep."

Her head snapped up.

"Jack! Why didn't you knock?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know what you were doing was so secretive!"

She sighed. "It's a journal, Jack."

"Okay, but you still need to go to bed."

"Fine, but can you step outside for a minute?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"I have a secret hiding place for my journal, so old men like you and North don't read it!" Emma explained.

I laughed before going into the hallway. Wow. I did not know that Emma kept a journal. It only made me want to read it. I started to devise a plan to get my hands on Emma's journal. Okay, tomorrow's a-

I jumped when I felt two fingers jab my sides.

"Emma!" I complained.

"I'm done," she said, smiling innocently.

I rolled my eyes and picked her up, bringing her back into her room. Most of her furniture was either purple or white, since purple was her favorite color. Whether it was indigo, lavender, violet, mauve or orchid, almost everything was a shade of purple.

I tucked Emma in and said, "Night night, don't let the bed bugs bites. And if they do…"

Emma smiled and continued, "...take off your shoe and beat them till they're black and blue!"

I turned off the lights and left her room, running into mine and shutting the door. Alright, continuing with the plan. I quickly sat by my desk and grabbed a pencil and some scrap paper to jot down my plans:

-tomorrow is January 18th, a Friday which means Emma has ballet lessons

-Emma will still be in class by the time I leave school

-go home and search for the journal in her room

-find her journal and start reading

-clean up the mess from searching

-pick up Emma from class at 5:30

-act like nothing happened

There. A solid plan. I put the pencil back into the chipped mug with all the other pens and pencils. I held onto the mug, running my fingers across it. Just a plain white mug, except the bottom half was cooly painted to look like snowflakes and frost. This used to be the mug that I left an Elsa's place, so that I could have hot cocoa or cider whenever I slept over on winter night, or for those times when I went over to read in her attic. That was before the time in middle school when I dropped the mug, and it got chipped. Now, it's used for holding pens.

I looked out the window. Sure enough, I could see Elsa's figure by the attic window, probably reading. I smiled. Just Elsa being Elsa. Curling up in a corner with a book reading and avoiding life.

It wasn't always like that. Years ago, we would sit in that attic in the book nook together, just reading for hours. We would toss popcorn into each others' mouths on movie nights in her basement. We would build snowmen with our sisters on snowy days. We would have snowball fights and go sledding, too. We'd stay in the music room together. She'd sing and/or play piano, and I'd play piano and/or guitar. Years ago, Elsa Arendale was my best friend.

I remember in 5th grade, we were at my place, working on our final art projects of the year. I chose to do a painting while Elsa did a charcoal drawing. North cleared the dining table and covered it in newspapers so we could work on our projects in the kitchen, and our sisters were just chilling in the living room watching cartoons.

When I finished my painting, I looked over at Elsa, who was putting her finishing touches on her drawing of a snowman.

"Wow," I whispered to myself.

Elsa's drawing was amazing, Charcoal pieces were usually dark, but Elsa managed to make the snowman light and still incorporate all the shadows, midtones, and highlights. When she was done, she looked up and saw me staring.

"What?"

"Ummm, nothing," I stammered, cheeks growing warm. I suddenly found interest in my feet.

"Whoa," I heard Elsa say.

"What?" I asked nervously, hoping she wouldn't comment about my flushed cheeks.

I sighed in relief when I saw her staring at her hands.

"My hands have charcoal all over them," she said softly, holding up her hands for me to see.

I laughed when I saw the smudges. I looked at my own hands. They were covered in paint. Blue, brown, green, almost every color.

"Shall we go scare the little ones?" I suggested mischieviously, gesturing at our sisters.

Five seconds later, Emma and Anna were running up the stairs, shrieking, with me and Elsa chasing them.

I put the mug down. It wasn't the only thing that reminded me of Elsa. Also on my desk was the first jigsaw puzzle we completed together. It was a simple puzzle, 30 pieces, it was an image of the carousel, something we bought from the carnival. Took us less than two minutes. I spun around in my chair. Framed and hung on the wall was the biggest jigsaw puzzle we completed together. It was almost six years ago, in the fifth grade, when I brought over a 1000 piece Winnie the Pooh jigsaw puzzle. We'd work on a little bit everyday, and every time we got a huge chunk of it done, I'd bring it over to my place. We put all the final pieces on there.

I still remember the day we finished the puzzle. May 30th. She wore a purple t-shirt and black shorts. I wore a black t-shirt and bermudas.

I handed the last piece to Elsa. She beamed as she carefully placed the very last piece to fill the space in Winnie the Pooh's nose and complete the puzzle. We celebrated finally getting the puzzle done (for less than ten minutes) before Elsa's mom came to pick her up shortly afterwards. I would've asked for more time to celebrate if I knew that it would be the last puzzle we completed together.

Usually I would just mess up the completed puzzles and toss them back into the box, but I didn't with this one. Over the summer, North helped me frame it, and I hung it up in my bedroom. I'm always glad I framed this one, since it was the biggest and the last puzzle we ever completed.

But it's not like we didn't try. The summer before sixth grade, we tried beating our 1000 piece record, and went for 1500 pieces. This time, the completed image was an antique world map. We were reluctant about working on the puzzle in the beginning, since there was a piece missing, but we ended up working on it anyways. We finished by the middle of August, and we spent a week looking for that last piece before we gave up; it was almost the beginning of the new school year.

Ah, middle school. That was when everything fell apart, crumbling down to what it is now. Whatever this is.

I still have all 1499 pieces of the puzzle. It's broken down to smaller chunks of the entire map and stored in a box in my closet. Right next to my lucky puck and my hockey equipment. I don't know why. Maybe part of me hopes for my snowflake to come back to me. Or maybe this is just something to remind me of my best friend before I lost her.

I looked back up to her attic window. Elsa wasn't there. My eyes dropped to the room on the floor below, two windows to the left. Elsa's room. Seconds after I started staring at her window, the lights in her room went out. I realized how dark it was outside. Then I checked the clock. 12:11. Guess I spent hours lost in thought. But about what? Clearly she's given up on us. Why do I even bother thinking about her? It only brings back the pain I've been in for the past years. I mean, we barely talked throughout middle school, and our conversations in high school would consist of one of us mumbling something along the lines of "ummmmm", "somebody is waiting for me", or "I should get going". Actually that would only make up 25% of our conversations. The other 75% would be our averting eyes looking at the lockers, general awkwardness and I don't about Elsa, but most of the time I'm just trying to think about something else to get her off my mind, but nothing ever works.

I looked back at Elsa's window one last time before deciding I should turn out the lights and get some sleep.

Good night, Elsa.

* * *

Sorry for that terrible physics joke...

Hugo and Hayley are OC. I chose the name Hayley because I was listening to a Paramore song at the time, and I have no idea how I came up with Hugo...


	3. Chapter 3

Elsa's POV:

I jumped at the sound of the alarm. Another day of school. Thank goodness it's Friday.

In 15 minutes I was at the dining table, eating breakfast.

After a while, my parents asked about Anna, and I plainly replied, "I think she'll be here in five, four, three, two-"

"Hi guys!" says Anna, who is sprinting to the dining table, only to start stuffing the blueberry pancakes in her mouth as fast as possible, rushing to make up for being behind schedule, as always.

"Right on cue," I muttered.

School was normal...for a Friday. Teacher talks, I take notes, student makes a joke, the class laughs, then back to square one. Nothing was out of the norm until those few minutes in between periods before lunch. I was walking with Anna to the cafeteria and we were talking about pairings in our school, or as she liked to call it, 'ships'.

"Okay, fine, ummmm how about Hiccup and Merida?"

I shook my head.

"What? Why? I can see them together. They'd be so cute!"

"I don't know, Anna," I said, looking at my boots. "I think there are better pairings…"

"Oh really? Tell me Elsa, who else would make a better pair?" she asked playfully.

"How about him and Astrid?"

"Oh my gosh! Yes! Hiccup and Astr-" Her excitement turned into a gasp.

"What's wrong?"

She started heading the other way, and said, "I forgot my biology notebook. I'm gonna go back to my locker to get it. Go to the lunchroom without me, I'll be there in-"

And that's when she crashed right into Jack, and I started panicking.

I immediately walked away, rushing through the hallway, and hurried down the stairs to the cafeteria. The entire time I was praying that Jack didn't see me. I managed to avoid him whenever I could for years, ugh, how could I slip up today? Trying to look composed, I entered the cafeteria, and saw my friends sitting at the normal table.

"Hey, Elsa!" Rapunzel (my cousin) said, smiling.

"Hi, Punzie."

"Where's Anna?"

"She left something in her locker, she's going back to get her biology notebook."

I chose to leave out the part about Jack. They didn't need to know. I took out my lunch and started eating the brownies my mom baked.

I was on my second brownie when Merida looked up and said, "Oh, I see Anna."

I turned around and sure enough, Anna was walking towards the table, waving.

"Hi guys! Sorry, I forgot my notebook in my locker," she explained.

"Elsa filled us in," Merida said.

"Yea, Elsa was talking about Hiccup and Astrid, and then I remembered that Astrid was in my biology class, and that I forgot my notebook," Anna said, taking a brownie from my lunch bag.

"Wait," Punzie cut in. "Hiccup and Astrid are dating?"

"No, we were just talking about people who would look good together," Anna replied before continuing. "Anyways, I told Elsa to go on without me, and so she did. Then right when I turn around, I walked right into Jack Frost."

"Oh gosh, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "We had a little conversation, and then I got my notebook and ran back here."

"So what did you guys talk about?" Merida asked suspiciously.

"Oh, it was nothing, we just apologized to each other multiple times."

"Multiple times?" I asked, confused.

"Well, we were trying to figure out whose fault it was, it was stupid, it's nothing," Anna mumbled, turning her attention to the chocolate bar she just unwrapped. "Want some?"

I broke off a piece, eyeing Anna since I wasn't convinced with her story.

Merida grumbled. "Gods you guys are so nice to each other."

Anna blinked. "We're sisters."

"Yea, well, as you guys know, I'm stuck with three brothers. Triplets. They are monsters. They would _never_ share with me."

"At least you guys have someone, I'm an only child, and I have to admit that it's a little lonely." Punzie said.

"Punzie, you're lucky to be an only child. You don't have to live with siblings and put up with their wickedness, " said Merida.

"Or weird morning hair," I added, thinking of Anna's bed head.

Punzie and I laughed; we knew how Anna's hair looked in the morning all too well.

"You guys are bullies, " Anna said, mocking a child's voice. "And Punzie, you'll always have your friends."

Punzie beamed and wrapped me, Merida, and Anna in a hug. "Yea, you're right, and you guys are the best friends a girl can ever wish for!"

I waited in the car for Anna a little longer than usual, which made me suspicious. Did this have to do with what she was hiding from me during lunch? When she finally slid into the seat next to me, I used my interrogation voice and said, "So, Anna, want to tell me what you've been up to lately?"

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"What secret information are you keeping from me?" I asked, trying to hold back from laughing.

When Anna said nothing, I slammed my palm on the dashboard and asked quickly, "What are you hiding from me?"

"I'm doing drugs!"

"Don't lie to me!"

And we both started laughing. That was similar one of our favorite Luke and Phil moments from Modern Family, and we practically reenacted it.

When we both calmed down, I started driving. "But Anna, seriously, I know you are hiding something from me. What happened?"

Anna sighed.

"Well?"

"Okay. There's this guy…"

My eyes widened. "What did this guy do to you? I swear I'm going to-"

"Elsa, calm down. Nothing bad happened."

I sighed in relief, and I kept my attention on the road since the light just turned green.

"Anyways, the guy is Kristoff."

"Kristoff Bjorgman?"

"Yea, that's him. You know him?"

I nodded. "He's a nice person. He helped me carry all of my heavy textbooks last year when I was on my way to returning them."

"Yea, he is really kind-hearted. I actually sort of tripped and fell on the stairs today, and he helped me get to the nurse's office."

"Oh, was that why you were a little late meeting me at the car?"

"Uh huh."

"Are you okay? Did you hit your head like that time when you were five?"

Anna shook her head. "The nurse said I was fine. It was really cute, Kristoff waited for me outside the nurse's office to see if I was alright."

"That was very kind and courteous of him," I said.

"Cool! So you wouldn't be mad if, he, ummm, asked me out on a date?"

I slammed on the brakes, almost running the red light. "He asked you out?"

"Yea," Anna said timidly.

"Where are you guys meeting and when?"

"Just to the movies at 4:15 today."

I thought for a minute. Kristoff was a genuinely nice guy. I don't think he would hurt Anna. I mean, the guy has dozens of reindeer stickers and magnets in his locker, he wouldn't harm her. I sighed before answering, "Fine. If it's okay with Mom and Dad."

Anna rapidly grabbed her phone and started texting. She got an immediate reply, or should I say replies, judging by the number of chimes coming from her phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anna grin.

"I'm guessing they let you go with him?"

Anna nodded and squealed. "You're the best!" She reached over and hugged me. I hugged back with one arm, while the other drove and parked us outside our house.

"Do you need me to drive you to the theaters?"

"Yes, and can you pick me up, too?"

"Sure, just text me," I replied as I unlocked the front door.

Anna hugged me once again before going upstairs to get ready for her date.

I walked up the stairs, too, going to my room. I thought of something I could do while waiting for Anna since I didn't want to drive back and forth three times. Opening the door to the closet, I pulled out a small step ladder to reach the top shelf and shuffled through all the old and forgotten items until I found the box I was looking for. I swiped away the dust on the lid from years of neglect. I lifted the lid and saw my figure skates, polished and everything, mostly because I haven't touched them since eighth grade.

I mentally apologized to them. I'm sorry for leaving you in a closet for three years. I'm sorry I left you on the top shelf to collect dust. I'm sorry I broke my promise to Mom that I'd practice skating at least every two weeks. I'm sorry I let the complications of life get in the way and separate us for two years. That is, until that one time in eighth grade, but then three more years after that.

Five years in total. That's quite the hiatus. Well, it's about time for me to get back to skating. I put the skates on my feet hoping they still fit. They did. They fit perfectly. I smiled, and I realized how relieved I was that my skates fit, and that I've been wanting to get back to skating for a while. I removed the skates and put them in a bag with the rest of my skating gear. I took the bag down to the living room where I continued reading A Game of Thrones until Anna was ready.

I checked the time. It was almost 4, and Anna still didn't come downstairs yet. I walked upstairs and knocked on her door.

"Anna? We should get going right now," I said.

"Yea, but I need you to approve my outfit."

"Sure."

I walked into her room, and saw Anna all dressed up. She was wearing a black sweater and a blue skirt with dark tights and black boots. Over that, she wore a magenta coat.

"You look great," I said.

"Really?" she asked.

"Of course, Anna. You look beautiful."

Anna smiled before saying, "Thank you. You look beautifuller. I mean not fuller, you don't look fuller, but more beautiful."

"Thank you, Anna, but I'm not the one going on a date." I playfully jabbed her in the ribs. "You are, and you look great."

Anna nodded. "Alright, let's go."

She took her bag with her, and I grabbed mine before we left.

I was expecting a really girly talk with Anna about her date during the drive, but what she said took me completely by surprise.

"Elsa, I think we should talk about you and Jack."

I froze for a second, before shifting to start driving. "Why?"

Why would Anna care about me and Jack?

Anna sighed. "Well, when you guys used to be best friends and everything, you were always playful and fun, but now you're reserved and quiet. You spend most of the time studying. Your nose is almost always in a book of some sort."

"Yea, well, school got in the way," I quickly answered. It wasn't a lie. School was the thing that separated us, but not exactly because of academic reasons.

"I think you were better with Jack than you are without him," Anna blurted out.

I kept my eyes on the road, refusing to speak.

"Do you remember when we would build snowmen? For example, Olaf?" Anna said slowly. "Or how about those times when we stayed in the basement watching movies? Or go outside and have snowball fights? Go to the rink and ice skate? We did almost everything together with Jack."

"Look Elsa, you can't just shut him out for the rest of your life. It's unfair for him and for you, too. You guys are losing each other, you're each losing your best friends."

_I shut him out for a while, okay, I'll admit it. But after some time he stopped trying entirely and moved on, _I thought.

When I didn't say anything out loud, she tried again. "Elsa, you can't look me in the eye and tell me that you don't miss being with him."

"I'm driving, Anna, of course I can't look you in the eye," I said as I turned around the corner and parked.

"That's Kristoff, standing by the entrance right?" I asked.

Anna turned to look out the window and I swore I saw her cheeks grow a shade rosier. "Yea."

"Well, have fun."

Anna looked at me as if she were waiting for something.

"What?"

"I was waiting for you to look me in the eye and say that you don't miss Jack."

I playfully pushed her out the car. "Go on your date, he's waiting for you!"

"Alright, alright," she said chuckling.

I watched from my car seat as Anna and Kristoff greeted each other and then walked into the theater. He held the door for her, and then they walked to the box office.

At the rink, I thought about what Anna said. My mind went back a decade, thinking about building snowmen, as I took my skates out of my bag. Jack would roll the lower body of Olaf, while Anna made his head, and I did the rest. Sometimes Emma would help with the decorations. I still remembered the time when Emma was meticulously trying to find two nearly identical sticks for Olaf's arms. It was just as funny and adorable then as it was now, as I'm lacing up my skates. I got up and walked to the lockers and tossed my bag in one of them.

When I put my first foot on the ice, I could feel my inner figure skater reconnecting with me. I started skating slowly around the rink, and then moved on to doing the warm ups my coach recommended for me to do everytime I skated. Before I stopped skating, my coach was Yvette Keirstead. She was good friends with my mom, and in her mid thirties when she started coaching me. Yvette was almost like a second mother to me. On the days when I had skating practice, she picked me up from school and we went to the rink together. After hours of practicing difficult jumps and working on my footwork, we'd go back to her house to bake and eat chocolatey desserts while waiting for my mom to pick me up after work. Mom and Anna would always take some goodies from the tray, whether they were cookies, brownies, fudge, cupcakes or peppermint bark.

I did a couple of forward and backward crossovers, and then decided to review the jumps Yvette taught me over five years ago. I started with salchows. Landing just fine for the double and triple salchows, I worked on the tougher jumps. After a few tries, I succeeded in executing the triple toe and triple loop jumps correctly. I practiced these the least when I was still taking lessons, which made sense since I landed incorrectly on the first few tries. The next jump I try to do is the triple axel. It's definitely the most difficult jump Yvette taught me. I tried to recall her words as I prepared to jump. Time to see how good I am after a five year hiatus. Bend your skating knee. Remember, forward outside edge, Elsa. Use your free leg and jump forward. Three and a half revolutions, land on the back outside edge, and ta-da! I landed and I was in disbelief. I managed to get the triple axel jump right on my first try in five years! I smiled and hugged myself, almost laughing out loud, as I skated slow, small circles around the rink. After that, I guess I just did random moves Yvette taught me. I started with grapevine freestyle, and then I just went with the flow from there. Flying camel spins, then sit spins, and then I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I skated off the rink and checked my phone.

Text Message from: Anna

_Hey, sis! We just finished watching the movie, it was amazing! :D Anyways, Kristoff and I are at the cafe right outside the theater, so I'll wait for you to pick me up there. See you soon! _

Text Message to: Anna

_I'm assuming the date went well? I'll get to the cafe in a while. _

I put my phone back in my pocket and walked to the lockers, but stopped dead in my tracks the moment I looked up. A boy with shocking white hair that I could recognize from a mile away. Jack Frost. He was by the arena exit, holding the door for a girl with brown curls that almost reached her waist. Nicole Kaufman. He didn't notice me, he was too busy talking to her. I backed away, not wanting one of them to turn and see me. Something inside me drove me to storm right back to the ice and start skating again. I guess skating just takes my mind off things. Like the thought of Jack and Nicole together again. They were going out in junior high, from 7th grade all the way till the week before graduation, since they were going to different schools. And I guess they bumped into each other and are now making out somewhere. I noticed a familiar weight on my chest that hasn't been there since middle school. I wondered why, and the obvious reason would be because I was jealous. But I wasn't. No. I'm not jealous of Nicole Kaufman. I skated around quicker, trying to shake the thought from my head. Being jealous of another girl because of a guy? That's ridiculous. I don't even have-

"Hey."

I felt a tap on my arm and spun around. It was a guy with brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a hockey jersey.

"Um, you're Elsa, right?"

I nodded, suddenly recognizing the boy. He was one of Jack's friends. One that always sits next to him in his backyard, but I didn't know his first name. Sometimes I see him wearing his hockey jersey, his last name is Bennett.

"I'm Jamie." He held out his hand and I shook it.

"Right. You're on the hockey team. Bennett."

"Yep!" He started skating along with me." Jamie Bennett, number one. I basically scored most of the points for the team so far this season," he said, faking arrogance.

I laughed. "I wouldn't know, I haven't been to any of the games. I actually haven't been to the rink for a few years."

"Years? No. I refuse to believe that. You nailed those jumps before!"

"You were watching?"

"Yep. And there is no way a person can nail those jumps after years without practice."

"But it's the truth!" I crossed my arms. "If you don't believe me, I refuse to believe that you scored those points."

"Fine, you got me. What I said before was a lie."

"Really? So who's the real top scorer?"

"Frost. By one goal. Just one."

"Oh," I said, dropping my head.

"No surprise there, he's the captain of the team." He noticed me staring at my skates and stopped. "Hey, what's wrong?"

I looked up. "It's nothing," I said out loud, even though I was hurting on the inside. Thinking about Jack just does that to me. Especially now that Nicole's back in the picture.

My phone buzzed again. I pulled it out of my pocket.

Text Message from: Daddy

"No phones on the ice." Jamie blurted out. Then he quickly said, "Sorry. Frost is always snapping at other team members about phones."

I shook my head. "I should be apologizing for having my phone out in the first place. My dad's texted, so I'm going to go." I started skating to the exit. "It was nice talking to you, Jamie."

He nodded and waved. "See you on Monday!"

I checked the message.

_Sorry for the short notice, but your mother and I can't make it home in time for dinner. You and Anna can order pizza tonight. The money is on the coffee table. _

Reading the message, I suddenly realized that Anna was still waiting for me to pick her up. I hurriedly took off my skates, put on my boots, gathered my stuff, left the arena. and ran to my car.


	4. Chapter 4

Jack's POV:

Let's just say that today did not go the way I wanted it to. Mishap after mishap.

Mishap #1:

It was right before lunch, and I was putting my notebooks and folders back into my locker. But then I realized that I didn't take out my lunch bag. Groaning, I fiddled with my combination lock again, and when it unlocked with a click, I snatched the bag from the hook at the side of my locker and slammed the locker door shut. The next few seconds were a messy blur. A body slammed right into mine, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor. When I opened my eyes, I saw a familiar strawberry blonde who offered me a hand. I took it and stood up. I was still a little shaky, but I could make out a figure running down the hallway. The person had platinum blonde hair, a black backpack over her shoulders and brown boots. Elsa? My vision cleared up a bit and yea, it was Elsa. I sighed. I shouldn't be surprised to see her to run when I'm around. After all, she has been avoiding me for five years. And yet I still feel a piece of me die on the inside whenever she walks by, not noticing me.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going, are you alright?" the strawberry blonde said.

"I'm fine," I said. I looked at her again and realized who it was. "Hi Anna."

"Hello Jack."

It remained quiet for a while, the silence and awkwardness setting in.

"Yea… I had to go back to get my notebook, and I really am sorry that."

"It's okay, Anna."

"It's been a while, huh?" Anna asked.

"Yea…" my voice trailed off, as I tried to remember the last time we've hung out together as a group..

I think it was that one winter afternoon in December, back in 6th grade. Hiccup, Flynn, Punzie, Merida, Anna, Elsa, and I were all at the park, enjoying the snow. Anna and I were having a snowball fight, and I was winning, until Elsa decided to join Anna's side and I lost, due to the injustice of a two against one game. After the fight, I was brushing the snow off my jacket, when Flynn shoved Elsa, who bumped into me and we both fell, the layers of snow crunching beneath us.

"Flynn, why'd you do that?" Elsa shouted. She turned to face me. "Sorry Jack," she mumbled as she got up.

"Apology not accepted," I replied.

I took the snow I was hiding behind my back and threw it at her. Satisfied with Elsa's infuriated expression, I smirked. My grin quickly faded as it was greeted with a bunch of snow. I held my hands up, blocking the incoming wave of fast flying snowballs. It's strange how Elsa has the snowball fighting skills of a snow goddess when I'm the one who shares a name with a winter spirit. I noticed that the snow stopped attacking my hands, and let my guard down. That was a pretty bad move. A millisecond after I opened my eyes, Elsa was standing right in front of me, and then she smothered my face with a fistful of snow. I could hear her laughing as I coughed and swiped the snow off my face.

"Arendelle, you're evil."

Elsa was holding her stomach, still laughing, and she sat on one of the swings, trying to regain her balance. Her laughter was music to my ears, and hearing the mellifluous sound of her mix of chuckling, giggling, and guffawing was enough to make me smile. I sat down on the swing next to hers, and swung myself sideways to jostle her in her seat. She stopped laughing and bumped back. I glanced over at her and we exchanged a look.

"Banana split?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, grinning.

"Jack? Hello? Earth to Jackson Overland Frost," Anna said, waving her hands around wildly.

I blinked, the nostalgia falling to the back of my mind.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"Lost in thought?"

I nodded.

"About anyone in particular?" Anna asked coyly. She looked me right in the eyes. "It's Elsa isn't it? Who am I kidding, who else could it be? Of course it's Elsa."

"It's not- I-"

It frustrated me. How I couldn't say that I wasn't thinking about Elsa. That would be a lie. Every time I get lost in thought I find myself thinking about her.

"Ha!" Anna shouted. "You _were_ thinking about her, I was right! But I have to ask, Jack, why were you thinking of my dear sister? Do you miss her? Do you wanna be best friends with her again?" She stopped bombarding me with questions, but then gasped and asked me with wide eyes, "Do you like my sister? As in wanting to be more than just friends?"

"Anna, that's ridiculous," I said, trying to walk past her, but she stepped in my way.

"Jack. I can keep a secret. You can tell me. Trust me, my lips are sealed. Tell me the truth," she said. The look in her eyes told me that if I didn't take her seriously I'd soon regret it.

I sighed and stared at the ceiling before huffing and murmuring, "Yes I miss Elsa, I wish we were still best friends."

When I was done, I looked down at Anna, who was tapping her foot on the hallway floor.

"What?"

"And my last two questions?"

"I thought you only asked two."

"The second two were if you liked her and if you wanted to be more than just friends or best friends."

"Whoa! That is classified information, for me and only me to know." Anna crossed the line, she is not supposed to know information this personal.

"Come on, Jack. Fine just tell me how you feel about her, be completely honest. Please?"

I glanced over at her. "You promise to not tell anyone?"

She squealed. "Yes. Absolutely no one. Cross my heart and hope to die." She then held out her pinky finger. "Pinky swear. Not gonna tell anyone."

I chuckled, it reminded me of Emma, who always made me pinky promise, before linking our pinkies and securing the promise.

"Elsa was always my best friend. Most people don't realize how amazing she is. But I do. She's smart, she's beautiful, she's playful, she's perfect. Middle school was when I first noticed that, and I guess it's just my luck that middle school was also when we got ripped apart. We stopped meeting up, I saw her less and less. For a while I felt empty, even with Jamie and all my friends, but it's just not the same without Elsa."

Yes I miss her. So much. Her platinum blonde hair, her mesmerizing blue eyes, the light dusting of freckles on her pale porcelain skin. The way she always hides her laugh behind her hand. The way her nose always knows when there's chocolate nearby.

"So you're into her?" Anna asked quietly.

Still thinking about her, I whispered, "Yea."

Anna's squeal was enough to crash my train of thought, and I realized what was said. I admitted to liking Elsa.

"Anna, you promised-"

"I know. And I won't. But I really need to go now, Your favorite girl, Elsa, and my friends are waiting for me. And oh my gosh I still need to get my notebook, bye Jack!" she said quickly before running to her locker.

I couldn't tell her that I actually didn't like her. But that's stupid because it would be a lie. I sighed. Anna got me. I like Elsa. I really do. Things were normal in elementary school, we were best friends, but middle school was when I realized how I felt about her. It just sucks that Elsa doesn't feel the same way. That we got pulled apart. That we can't even be friends.

Mishap #2:

I was humming while I walked down the nearly empty hallways. It was Friday, everyone was dying to leave school, but I took my sweet time. Why? Because Emma has ballet lessons, and I'm going to read her journal. I was considering clicking my heels mid-air when I was two steps from the school's exit, but I heard a voice yell.

"Frost!"

I turned around. It was Jamie. He caught up and clapped my shoulder.

"Hey. Where are you going?"

"Home."

He groaned and the palm of his hand immediately went to his forehead. "I forgot to tell you, Coach can't make it to practice on Tuesday, so he changed it to today."

My face immediately fell into my hands.

"Do you not have your stuff?"

"No, no, I have my stuff in my gym locker. When is practice going to end?"

"5:00."

I huffed. There's no way I'm going to be able to read Emma's journal today. Another time, then.

"Okay, let's go."

Mishap #3:

After practice, the hockey team left the locker room, and walked back to the rink, laughing together, they were practically a family. My teammates were my brothers, that's how close we were. At the rink, a lot of the team members waved and shouted to their friends or girlfriends who were figure skaters who took the free rink as an opportunity to practice.

"Hey Jamie, you need ride home?"

Jamie was looking at the skaters on the rink, which was strange. He didn't have a girlfriend, and as far as I knew, he didn't have a friend who's a figure skater.

"Jamie?"

"Dude, look," he said, sounding shocked. Jamie pointed at one of the figure skaters. It was Elsa. She was skating. I haven't seen her skating in years. She didn't bother with sweaters or jackets, she was just wearing figure skating pants and a plain magenta t-shirt. Of course, the cold never bothered her anyway.

"Wow, Your childhood best friend is an amazing figure skater." He paused. "And you're an awesome hockey player. Figures."

He mumbled something under his breath that I couldn't hear, but I didn't ask him about it, I was busy watching Elsa.

Jamie was right. Elsa's a really talented figure skater. It was clear that she was one of the best skaters on the rink. She was doing multiple sick and twisted jumps. Then she did a triple axel. It was flawless. She landed perfectly, and I could tell she was positively elated. She once told me how frustrating it was trying to get that jump right, and all that practice must've paid off, since she was beaming brightly. Elsa wasn't wearing one of the sparkling and glittery outfits all the other figure skaters were, but at that moment, she was the most radiant skater on the rink.

I'm not sure why she stopped skating. She was the best figure skater I knew, better than most people her age, and that's why in 8th grade I suggested that she should try out for the figure skating team. That day wasn't one of my best. I turned back to Jamie.

"Jamie, I need to go pick up Emma," I said, before waving goodbye.

Just as I was about to reach the exit, I heard a voice call me.

"Hi Jack."

I knew that voice. A person who I said goodbye to years ago. I looked, just to make sure. And standing right next to me was Nicole Kaufman. Her brown hair was tied back and her skates hung on her shoulders. Nicole was one of the first people who I talked to in middle school that I didn't know from before. We easily became friends. After 6th grade, it was evident that Elsa wasn't going to talk to me, so I asked Nicole out in 7th grade, hoping she'd be able to fill up the empty spot Elsa left in my heart. Nicole was pretty, smart and funny, after all, and I thought that it could be possible. We did enjoy each other's company, but she wasn't Elsa. Near the end of the school year, we broke up, knowing that we would be better as friends. Part of me knew that from the beginning, but the other half just wants to keep trying to get over Elsa. Nicole managed to make me feel better, but there was always a part of my heart that needed Elsa.

"Hi Nicole. Skating today?"

"Yea. I didn't know you guys had hockey practice at this rink."

"We do, but we usually don't have practice on Fridays. How are you?"

"I'm fine. Just high school problems. Are you going home now?"

I nodded. "I just need to pick up Emma first."

"I saw you looking at Elsa today."

"That was random."

She grinned. "You still like her, don't you?"

We walked out of the arena and I held the door for her, silently.

"I'll take that as a yes."

I remained quiet.

"Jack, you should tell her how you feel. Ask for a chance to start over and find a way to be best friends again."

"What if she doesn't want to?"

She sighed. "She can't be happy to lose her best friend. I'm sure she'll want to at least try. I need to pick up Ricky from piano lessons, so I have to go now, but you need to keep in mind what I said."

We hugged and said goodbye before I got in my car and she began walking the other way on the snowy street. I took out my phone and texted Jamie.

Text Message to: Jamie

_Hey, can you meet me at my place? I need to talk to you about something._

Text Message from: Jamie

_Sure, I'll be there soon._

"Hi Emma, how was ballet?" I asked.

"Super fun! We did spins and jumps and pirouettes and steps of the cat."

"Do you mean _pas de chat_?"

"Right! How did you know?"

"I just do, because I'm smart like that."

"Sure, Jack," Emma said, rolling her eyes.

Emma hopped into the car, and I sat behind the wheel.

"Is your seatbelt on?"

"Yep!"

"Emma, fasten your seatbelt."

"But I did!"

"Kiddo, I know you didn't," I said without looking behind me.

"How did you know?"

"I have a lie detector built in me."

"So you have like, magic powers?"

"Sort of," I said. _The inside car mirror is the source of my powers_.

Emma fastened her seat belt and said, "Okay, Jack, it's fastened. Am I lying now?"

I glanced at the mirror. "No, you're not. My powers tell me that you're telling the truth," I said playfully as I started driving us home.

"So what's up?" Jamie asked.

We stood in my backyard, the sky above us getting slightly darker. Jamie was wearing a hat along with his beige sweater and blue vest.

"Elsa. You know how we were best friends in lower school, then we drifted apart? Well I bumped into Anna and Nicole today."

Jamie let out a low whistle. "Two people from your past in one day, that's intense."

I nodded. "Anna got a confession out of me, and Nicole said that I should tell her how I feel and try to be friends again. What do you think?"

"I actually got a chance to talk to Elsa today."

"What? You talked to Elsa today?"

"Yep. I just introduced myself to her. We talked. I mentioned you twice."

Facepalm. "Why, Jamie, why would you do that?"

"I just wanted to see how she would react, you know, to get an idea of how she felt about you."

"And? How did she react?" I asked, suddenly desperate for his answer.

Jamie scratched the back of his head and I started to get nervous.

"The first time I mentioned you, I said that you were the top scorer on the team. She looked down at her skates."

"She hates me. I'm screwed."

"The second time, she had her phone out, and I said that you usually told people to put away their phones if they're on ice. She didn't really reply, she had to leave."

I groaned and sat on one of the chairs in the backyard. Jamie sat down on the chair directly across from me.

"Jack." I looked up. "She doesn't hate you. She was just thinking about you."

"And she hates me, so when she thought of me, she looked down at her skates."

"It doesn't mean she hates you! She might hate the way things are now between you and her, and maybe she's just like you, maybe she wants to be friends again. You do want that, right?"

I sighed. "I do, but…."

Jamie raised his eyebrows, realizing what I was about to say. "You wanna be more than just friends!" He chuckled.

I felt my cheeks redden a little and had an urge to slap the silly grin off Jamie's face. "Don't even, Bennett. Stop. No. Shut up."

He held his hands up. "It's okay to want to be more than-"

He was interrupted by a snowball to the face, courtesy of myself.

"Hey!" He threw one, which hit my chest. And that's how the snowball fight started.


	5. Chapter 5

Elsa's POV:

Anna waved me over when she saw me step out from my car. She and Kristoff were sitting at a lovely table at the cafe's outdoor seating. It was chilly and snow was on the streets but the cafe made the outdoor seating look incredibly charming. There were hanging lights, some were strings of mini light bulbs hung across the outdoor heaters, and there were also a couple of lanterns providing light since it was getting dark. The square tables were decorated with a few blue and white flowers and several tea lights. I walked over and as I got closer, I noticed a plate in front of Anna. It had crumbs on it, left from what I assumed was a slice of chocolate cake. She and Kristoff each had a mug in front of them.

"Hi Elsa!" Anna said cheerfully.

"Hi Anna. Hello, Kristoff." I glanced at Anna's mug. "Is that hot chocolate?"

"Yep," she said, and offered the mug to me. I took a sip. It was one of the best hot chocolates I've ever had. The drink was rich and thick, creamy as well, not overly sweet, but still very chocolatey.

"It's amazing, right?"

I nodded my head in agreement. "Absolutely divine."

"Told you this place had the best hot chocolate around," said Kristoff.

Anna sighed. "You did," she said smiling. "We should get going, bye Kristoff!"

She stood and kissed him on the cheek to his surprise. His eyes widened and a blush crept to his face, and I knew he was going to remember that kiss on the cheek forever.

Anna waved him goodbye, and he waved back. She then linked arms with me and we walked back to my car together.

"How was the date?"

"Wonderful," Anna whispered. "Kristoff is just so dreamy."

"Dreamy, huh?" I said, surprised by her choice of words.

"Uh huh. Kind, romantic, infinitely splendid, tall, original, fair and fetching, too."

"Original, you say?"

As she sat down in the car seat next to me, Anna pulled out something from her bag. It was an origami rose. "The flower and the leaves are made from a popcorn bag, and the stem is a mini corndog skewer."

Wow. This guy really liked Anna.

"Don't worry, it's not made from the stuff we ate out of, he asked for an extra bag and a extra skewer." She sighed again. "Isn't he the sweetest?"

I started driving. "Oh Anna, it's only the first date, and you've already fallen for him."

She started playing with one of her braids. "Maybe..." she said, giggling.

I continued driving as Anna thought about Kristoff. Usually I would say something like _you can't fall in love with someone you just met, _but this was different. Anna and Kristoff have been friends since the beginning of the school year. Not best friends, but still, pretty close friends. Kristoff wouldn't break her heart, he's trying to woo Anna. I smiled. I'll admit, they're cute together.

We got home and when the car was parked, I looked over at Anna. She was leaning against the car window, taking a nap. I woke her up.

"Dreaming about Kristoff?" I asked.

"How did you know?"

I chuckled lightly. "I just know. Magic powers, remember? I can give you sweet dreams and kick out the bad ones. I'm your dreamcatcher, Anna, of course I know what's up in your dreams."

Anna let out a sigh. "I wish I could be yours, then I can give you dreams of you and Jack being together," she teased.

Anna giggled for a while, and I let her, but she realized that I wasn't laughing and stopped.

Anna cleared her throat. "Sorry," she muttered awkwardly.

I sighed and got out of the car with Jack on my mind.

We walked into the house, and Anna asked, "What's the money on the table for?"

"Oh. I forgot to tell you. Mom and Dad can't make it to dinner tonight, so we're going to order pizza."

"Cool, I'll order it!" Anna said enthusiastically.

I nodded and walked over to the kitchen to make some tea. I stood by the door that lead to the backyard and looked out while I took a sip. In the backyard right next to ours, Jack and Jamie were having a snowball fight, shouting at each other as they attacked with fists full of snow. They looked like they were having fun, and that's what Jack was all about. I remember he'd always complain and beg to do something fun.

-6th grade. October 12th. 9:38 PM. -

"Please Elsa? It'll be so cool. And _fun._"

"Jack that's completely absurd. Do you not see how dangerous this is?"

"Do you not see how they are still alive?"

"That's because it was a movie, Jack, a _movie_. Also, what if the driver doesn't see you? You're not always going to be that lucky."

"Just me? So you're not going to-"

"No! Of course not! I'm not completely out of my mind!"

Jack walked out to the middle of the street and I had a mini heart attack.

"Jack! No! You could get run over!" I cried.

He stopped and turned around, smirking. "So you do care."

"Of course I care, Jack, you're my best friend!" I shouted to him from the sidewalk. I could feel the tears forming in my eyes. I can't lose Jack, not like this, not because of some stupid movie we watched during a trip. "Please, get back here," I said, quieter this time.

-end flashback-

I looked back outside. They were still in the backyard, still launching snowballs at each other, still having fun. But all I could think about was him and Nicole. There's always a heavy weight on my chest when I see them together, and I'm holding back tears right now, but Jack looks perfectly fine. There's a carefree expression on his face as he bombards Jamie with snowballs, like there's nothing wrong in his life, and there probably isn't. But there's something wrong with mine, and I can't hate Nicole Kaufman. She's everything a guy could possibly want. She's gorgeous, with brown hair and hazel eyes, smart, and athletic. We talked a couple of times in 6th grade, and anybody could tell that she was funny and didn't take pranks too seriously. She wasn't one of those girls who were backstabbers and talk behind people's backs. She was truly, sincerely, a nice person, and it's impossible to hate her, but I still can't be genuinely happy when I see her with Jack.

In elementary school, Jack and I would almost always be on the same page, but now we're not. He's having the time of his life, while I'm watching from the sidelines. He's happy with his life, I'm not. I liked him, but there's no way he would ever like me back, not in that way. It's my fault anyways, I let us separate in middle school. I could've saved us, but I didn't. I slowly stepped away from the backyard door and walked to the piano and lifted the fall board. My fingers fell on the black and white keys and I started playing a familiar tune. I hummed the lyrics before deciding to sing, thinking of Jack.

_But I never told you_

_What I should have said_

_No, I never told you_

_I just held it in_

_And now I miss everything about you_

_I can't believe it, I still want you_

_After all the things we've been through_

_I miss everything about you_

_Without you, whoa..._

_I see your blue eyes_

_Every time I close mine_

_You make it hard to see_

_Where I belong to_

_When I'm not around you_

_It's like I'm not with me_

_But I never told you_

_What I should have said_

_No, I never told you_

_I just held it in_

_And now I miss everything about you _

_I can't believe it, I still want you _

_After all the things we've been through _

_I miss everything about you_

_Without you, whoa..._

And suddenly my fingers froze and I stopped playing. In the next second, the piano fall board was back down and my head was in my hands. It wasn't long before the tears came streaming down my cheeks and I was full out crying. I sniffled, trying to keep the crying quiet, but I heard her rushing down the stairs and I desperately tried to wipe the tears from my eyes. That ultimately failed because Anna immediately noticed my puffiness and handed my a box of tissues.

"What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "It's nothing."

"Come on, Elsa, I'm your sister, you can tell me anything."

And so I told her everything, pouring out all of my emotions and thoughts, keeping my head down the entire time, not once looking up at Anna. Surprisingly, she remained quiet, not saying a word until I was done.

"It's okay, Elsa, it's okay."

Anna wrapped me in a hug and I let out a small laugh. She pulled away.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing, it just made me feel a bit better saying it out loud instead of bottling up my emotions," I replied, still sniffling every couple of seconds.

She nodded and then said, "You know, you could tell Jack how you feel, it might make you feel better."

"What?! No, Anna, there's absolutely no way I'm going to tell Jack Frost about this, and you better not tell him, either. Your lips are sealed, understand?"

"Sealed, locked and tossed away the key," she answered. "I'm only suggesting that you do this so you don't have to hide anything anymore. Everytime you see him, you won't have to hold back your feelings."

I shook my head. "No."

She tried again. "It's not like you have to tell him first thing tomorrow, you can tell him on the last day of school. You don't even have to tell him in person, you can write him a letter or something. It's really not that big of a deal, Elsa."

Not that big of a deal? I'm sorry, but I think a confession is a pretty big deal.

I was about to respond when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," Anna said.

A minute later, she came back with the pizza, grinning.

"Ah, the amazing smell of cheesy pizza," she said, inhaling the scent from the box she was holding. We placed the pizza on the table and both took a slice. Then, Anna grabbed the TV remote and we started binge watching on Netflix. We were halfway through our sixth episode of Modern Family when Anna's phone started buzzing. She looked at it and squealed.

"It's Kristoff, he's calling!"

All alone in the living room, I turned off the TV and sighed, going upstairs to my room and closing the door behind me before logging in to Pandora and playing music. I sat on my bed, leaning against the headboard and hugging a pillow. The first song played on Pandora, and the lyrics were so starkly true that it killed me.

_Maybe if my heart stops beating_

_It won't hurt this much_

_And never will I have to answer_

_Again to anyone_

_Please don't get me wrong_

_Because I'll never let this go_

_But I can't find the words to tell you_

_I don't want to be alone_

_But now I feel like I don't know you_

_One day you'll get sick of_

_saying that everything's alright_

_And by then I'm sure I'll be pretending_

_Just like I am tonight_

_Please don't get me wrong_

_Because I'll never let this go_

_But I can't find the words to tell you_

_I don't want to be alone_

_But now I feel like I don't know you_

_Let this go, let this go_

_But I'll never let this go_

_But I can't find the words to tell you_

_I don't want to be alone_

_But now I feel like I don't know you_

_And I'll never let this go_

_But I can't find the words to tell you_

_That now I feel like I don't know you_

As the song faded and another one replaced it, I realized that bottling up my emotions wasn't doing any good. It just made me miserable, though I didn't seem to notice it, I just got used to it. But I could tell Anna couldn't live like this, I needed to be by her side, to be my old self again, be a good sister like I was supposed to. At that moment, another set of song lyrics caught my attention, demanding to be heard:

_Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it_

_I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it_

It's almost unfair that Pandora could read my thoughts. But I thanked the personalized radio for helping me make a decision. I sat up and grabbed a pen and a sheet of looseleaf. I'm doing this for Anna, I told myself. Sisters need to be there for each other, and I can't do that without getting this done. Jack is probably going to think I'm an idiot and a loser for writing this letter, but screw that, after I get this off my chest I couldn't be able to care less about it. Jack wouldn't care, I wouldn't care, we'd both move on with our lives. Well, he's already moved on, but nonetheless I started writing the letter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Jack's POV:**

We stopped hurling snowballs at each other when Jamie said it was getting dark.

He waved from the door. "See you on Monday!"

"Actually, no."

Jamie looked at me, confused.

"Australia, remember?" I reminded him.

This year, North is taking me and Emma to Australia for vacation for a week, It's where his friend Tooth lives, and also where Bunnymund is from. North wants to go skating, skiing, and do all kinds of winter activities.

"Right… When are you leaving?"

"We're leaving Monday night, and I still need to pack and everything." I sighed.

"Well I'll see you on the Monday after that," Jamie replied. He walked back and gave me a hug before turning down the corner and walking back home.

I closed the front door, then: "Jack?"

I ran up the stairs to Emma's room, where the voice was coming from.

Emma was in her room, which currently was a mess. "Jaaaaaaaaacccckkkkk?"

"Yea?"

"Can you help me pack? I'm really tired…."

I took another look at her room.

"Pleeeeeeeeassssseeee?" She looked at me with pleading eyes.

I groaned. Kids and their puppy eyes.

"Fine. What do you want to bring with you?"

"Clothes, a few books, my iPod, my skating and skiing gear, and some other stuff."

I blinked. It'll be impossible to find things in her room, especially her iPod.

"Alright, just tell me where all that stuff is and I'll help you pack."

"Okay, I already packed my clothes, you can just take three random books from the top shelf of the bookcase, my skates should be in the drawer, and my iPod is…somewhere," she said, yawning. I tucked Emma in and she was about to doze off, but she said, "Oh, Jack, can you also pack tissue boxes? They're also in the drawer."

"All four? You know there are going to be tissues at-"

"I know, just put them in the suitcase, please."

And with that, she fell asleep. Tissue boxes? What? Oh well. My main task is to find her iPod. I shuffled through the mess in her room and found her red iPod next to her ski goggles. I ended up putting them both in her suitcase, she'll need the goggles. Then I went to get her skates and the tissues. I began tossing the tissue boxes into the suitcase, but the last tissue box was different. It felt heavier than the rest. I shook it, and noticed that something was inside. I checked, and sure enough, the box was hollow. I took the object out and almost screamed in excitement. It was Emma's journal. I carefully placed the last tissue box in the suitcase and left with her journal.

As I walked down the hallway to my room, I clicked my heels mid-air. I flopped onto my bed and leaned against the headboard. I undid the wraparound tie of the purple journal, flipped to a random page and started reading. In Emma's large, rounded handwriting:

_August 19_

_Jack threw a water balloon at me, which was very mean of him, we weren't even in a water balloon fight! Hey, at least the balloon was purple. :)_

_September 8_

_First day of school. Sophie and I both think Ms. Gothel looks young but is actually a lot older. I saw Punzie waiting for Ms. Gothel after school and asked her about it, and she said Gothel had some work done, what does that even mean?_

I winced. Ms. Gothel was not one of my favorite teachers. She hated me when I was in her class in fifth grade. Hopefully she'll go easy on Emma. I know for a fact that Gothel is older than she looks. Hiccup and I teamed up to find out her actual age, and told the rest of the gang. We laughed about it for weeks, honestly the woman should be retired by now. Punzie was upset about us laughing for a while, but eventually, she found herself giggling along.

_October 31_

_This year's hiding spot for the York Peppermint Patties: empty shoebox under my bed._

_November 1_

_Jack didn't steal any this year! Well he hasn't last year or the year before that or the… nevermind. He used to steal all of the York Peppermint Patties and share them with Elsa, but now he doesn't because I hide them so well._

True story. We shared a love for York Peppermint Patties, so I take some of Emma's to share with Elsa the next day. It's not my fault! Emma was still young and cute, she always collects more candy than I do. There was this one time Halloween landed on a Friday and Elsa told me the day of that her entire family had to go somewhere the next day. I had to take Emma trick or treating, so I couldn't find time to share the chocolate with her. So I worked with Hiccup (again) and we (he) built something so that I could send the chocolate to her. He set it up since I had to take care of Emma. The device simply connected the two trees outside our houses, which were relatively close to both of our respective rooms, so I could send her the chocolate. It was basically like a clothesline pulley system. She received the chocolate, of course. Hiccup's gadgets don't fail (usually). I attached a note onto the bag of chocolates. I remember I spent a long time trying to figure out what to write, but ended up just writing Happy Halloween! with several emoticons. I don't know why I bothered with the emoticons.

And for the record, I still steal some peppermint patties every year. I just don't take as many as I used to. Emma didn't notice.

_December 22_

_Jack threw a snowball at the back of my head. It felt similar to the times when he put snow in my hood and brought it over my head to "keep me warm", but it wasn't quite the same. Actually, he and Elsa used to do that to me and Anna. But now he doesn't hang out with Elsa anymore. I don't know why, they used to be best friends, and now I never see them together. Teenagers are weird._

At first I found myself laughing at the last line, but it faded. Teenagers are weird. Middle school and high school change some people. Or is it puberty? Or the fact that we're just hormonal like that? Kindergarten was a walk in the park. You go up to someone and start a game of tag together, and you guys are instant friends. Valentine's day as a kid was so easy, all you had to do is write all of your classmates' names on the boxes of Sweethearts your mom bought the day before. Middle school is all about making impressions on the first day of school to get yourself at the top of the popularity chain, and don't get me started on Valentine's day. You have to choose that one person to send a candy gram or a bunch of flowers to and worry about the rest of the school as it spreads rumours about who has a crush on who and so on. The status quo separates the school into cliques and make it nearly impossible for one person from one clique to cross paths with someone from another clique outside of class, whether they are jocks, overachievers, band geeks, theater nerds, goths, goody two shoes, science dudes, indie kids, or premature rock stars. The status quo seems dumb, but we all take it seriously, giving it a ton of power. Enough power to separate childhood best friends.

I decided it was high time for a York Peppermint Pattie. I keep them in an emptied out Clorox Wipes container. Everybody has a secret stash. Hiccup hides extra tools and parts in a hollowed out book about dragons. Punzie stores expensive paints under a step on her staircase. Anna doesn't really hide her chocolate well, she simply puts chocolate in her desk drawer. Elsa has several index card boxes for flash cards, but when you open the box labeled "English", you'll find that it's overflowing with chocolate.

I tossed the candy wrapper in the small trash bin. Then I went to the closet and pulled out my luggage. Better start packing now. I opened up Pandora on my computer so I could listen to music while doing boring tasks, such as packing.

I hummed along with the music while placing my clothes in the suitcase. I was loading my skiing and snowboarding gear into the bag when I saw my lucky puck. Should I bring it? I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to play ice hockey, because I might have to help Emma with her skating. I put it in my bag anyways. For luck. The lucky puck shall prevent any crashes on my flight, or any serious skating or skiing or snowboarding accidents. Hopefully.

XxXxXxXxX

I woke up the next day realizing that Emma's journal was still next to me, so I continued reading random entries.

_January 1_

_Yep, it's a new year! It's all about new beginnings, but I'm going to try to not mess up the date when I go back to school. Honestly, it sucks when you go back to school after winter break and you write January 2nd of the year that just passed. Anyways, that's my resolution this year. Sophie told me hers was to not mess around with other people's stuff, since she has a habit of doing that. Jack wouldn't tell me what his resolution was, said it was a secret, I bet his was to somehow be Elsa's best friends again. Or get her to be his girlfriend. Idk...but one of those two..._

I shut the journal angrily. That was _not _my resolution. My resolution was to break my candy stealing record. That's right, the return of Jack Frost, candy robber. Unsuspecting Emma thinks she has finally outsmarted me, but this year I will break my record and steal at least 35 peppermint patties this Halloween.

I twisted the doorknob and tiptoed into Emma's room. But she wasn't there. My eyes immediately went to the suitcase. It was right where I left it yesterday, untouched. I sighed in relief. After the journal was back in her suitcase, I ran downstairs for breakfast.

"Morning," I said to Emma and North, who were sitting in the dining table.

"Morning Jack," Emma chirped.

"Scone?" North asked, gesturing to a plate.

"These are chocolate chip, and these are vanilla bean," Emma said, pointing at specific scones on the plate. "They're both really good."

We talked all throughout breakfast. Emma talked about how excited she was about the trip, and North agreed, saying how he wanted to see his friend Tooth again.

"Is she nice?"

"Yep, she also has a brother, Sandy. He's a mute, but don't worry, Tooth and I will translate to you guys. You'll love them. If I wasn't sure of that I wouldn't make you guys live at their place for a week."

"Ooooooooh, is their house pretty?" Emma asked.

"They used to live with their other siblings Manny, Nightlight and Katherine, so their house is huge."

And from there, somehow the conversation transitioned and now it's about cookies.

"Double chocolate chip cookies?" North asked, wonder in his eyes.

Emma nodded. "Please? This afternoon?"

"Of course. Jack, are you going to help?"

"Sure," I said, finishing the scone.

"Hey, you took the last one!" Emma complained.

I tapped her nose. "Too bad."

XxXxXxXxX

Later that day, I went for a walk. On my way back, as I got closer and closer to my home, I thought about the house right next to mine. Maybe. Just maybe. The next thing I knew, I was at the doorway of the house, ringing the doorbell. Part of me hopes someone answers, and the other part is completely chickening out. _Answer_, don't answer. _I just want to talk to Elsa_, you know she'll never like you back, right? The two conflicting parts of me were driving me insane. But then, I realized that nothing has changed. The door was still close, no one answered it. So I turned back and walked over to my home, disappointment drenching me. But some of that disappointment became anger. Honestly, was the world trying to tease me, because this is not funny! The world brings people like Anna and Nicole back into my life, and one of them encourages me to tell her. Emma's journal brings back that bittersweet nostalgia that just breaks my heart. All of this builds up and I finally find the courage to tell her, but the world lets me down: she's not home.

I lock myself in my room and the first thing I do is release a guttural scream. I swung my first at my bedroom wall and then fell against it, pressing my forehead to the plaster. Then I let myself fall backwards onto my bed.

* * *

**Elsa's POV:**

It took a while, but I managed to finish the letter and be satisfied with its contents. Now all I had to do was toss it in Jack's locker and run away.

So the next day after school, I lingered in the hallways a little longer than usual. I watched as the students left and the hallways were almost completely empty, then I walked over to Jack's locker. I stood there, digging through my backpack until I found the envelope. It was sealed, just a folded piece of looseleaf in a plain white envelope. I was about to slip the letter into Jack's locker, but then:

"Hey Elsa, what are you doing?"

I screamed. I turned around and saw Jamie.

"What. The. Hell. You scared the _living daylights _out of me."

Jamie held his hands up. "Sorry, I didn't mean it."

I sighed, hiding the letter behind me. "It's okay."

Jamie looked at the locker behind me and noticed whose it was.

"You know Jack was absent today, right?" Jamie said. Now that I thought about it, I didn't see Jack at school today. "He won't be here for a week. He's going to Australia."

It took me a while to register what was just said. "Australia?" I croaked in disbelief.

"Yep. To go skiing and skating, maybe even snowboarding. He's leaving tonight."

My grip on the letter tightened. "I need to go," I said to Jamie, turning to leave for the school's exit.

I ran to my car, where Anna was waiting. She looked up from her phone and saw the letter that was still in my hand.

"What happened?"

I sat in the car and immediately began to drive.

"He's going to Australia," I said, the defeat and chagrin present in my voice.

"What?!" Anna half screamed.

I nodded. "Australia as in the country and the continent. Australia as in where Bunnymund is from. Australia as in the country Jack calls Kangarooland."

Anna groaned, seriously annoyed. "You wanna just put the letter in their mail slot?" she suggested.

I nodded. As much as I hated the world then, I had to admit, just leaving it in the mail and having him read it while he was in Australia is better than having him give me weird looks for a week in school. So when I parked the car, I walked over to the house next door and slipped the envelope through the door Before leaving, I tapped the door lightly twice. At that mahogany door I dropped off all of my feelings and emotions, freed myself from the swirling storm inside, and most importantly, let it all go, the past is in the past.


	7. Chapter 7

**Please don't freak out, this chapter isn't as long as you think it is... there are approx. 2.5 songs in this one, so it only makes the chapter look long, and I apologize for being misleading. **

* * *

Jack's POV:

"I call the window seat!" Emma practically yelled to everyone boarding the plane.

I walked closely behind her. "Calm down, Em."

Well she got what she wanted. She claimed her seat by the window and I sat next to her. North sat in the row in front of us, next to a man we didn't know. Nevertheless, North started talking to the man, introducing himself. The man said his full name was Phil Clark Yeti.

Emma squealed in her seat. It reminded me of the time when Punzie squealed in her seat on the coach bus. Flynn looked at her weirdly, and she apologized, saying that she was just a little jumpy.

"Excited much?" I asked.

"Duh! We're traveling, going on a trip!" Emma replied.

"Didn't you go on that trip to Philadelphia in September?"

"Yea, but that was on a coach bus, this is an airplane! An airplane!" she exclaimed, and I swear I saw these emoticons in a speech bubble above her head: :D XD :)

When the airplane took off: XD XD XD XD XD XD

Half an hour after the plane was up in the sky: zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Emma fell asleep, and I thought about the last trip I've been on. High school trips were very rare. We had a few trips in middle school. The one in 6th grade was the most fun. It was sort of a welcoming trip for students in October. We went to a resort in Connecticut and did a bunch of thrilling activities like rock climbing, ziplining, practicing archery (Merida loved this), and so much more. The bus ride was boring. We were on one of those coach buses, and of all movies, our teacher chose to be a sappy romantic and played The Notebook, but the actual trip and the activities made up for that faulty decision (honestly, this was supposed to be a fun trip, not one for romance). It's a shame it wasn't an overnight trip. It might as well have been, since the bus driver messed up big time and got lost so by around 9:30 at night, we were sort of close, but not back to the school yet, where some of our parents were waiting. Elsa and I texted our parents (in my case, my guardian) and we got permission to leave. The bus wasn't that great of a distance from our homes, so we decided to hop off the bus and just walk home together. We took our sweet time walking, despite the fact that it was super dark outside, the only sources of light were the moon, the street lamps, and the early Halloween decorations. She was wearing a dark denim jacket with black jeans and sneakers, and her platinum blonde hair was down. We were walking home, just the two of us, and I made a bold move and grabbed Elsa's hand. I let out a sigh of relief when she didn't try to pull away, she kept her hand in mine.

When I saw the traffic light hanging over our heads, an idea popped into my head and I couldn't resist. I nudged Elsa.

"Wanna reenact that scene from the movie we watched on the bus?"

Her eyes widened, but I didn't get the response I wanted. "The lying on the street scene? No thank you."

"Please Elsa? It'll be so cool. And _fun._"

"Jack that's completely absurd. Do you not see how dangerous this is?"

"Do you not see how they are still alive?" I asked.

"That's because it was a movie, Jack, a _movie_. Also, what if the driver doesn't see you? You're not always going to be that lucky."

"Just me? So you're not going to-" I protested.

"No! Of course not! I'm not completely out of my mind!"

I walked out to the middle of the street. It was a red light but there were no cars.

"Jack! No! You could get run over!" Elsa cried.

I stopped and turned around, smirking. "So you do care."

"Of course I care, Jack, you're my best friend!" She shouted to me from the sidewalk. "Please, get back here," she said, a lot quieter this time.

I walked back to where Elsa was standing, only to pull her with me to the middle of the street. She yelped and tried to pull away, but in the end, she was standing next to me. I sat down and then laid down on the asphalt. Elsa turned around and was about to walk back to the sidewalk.

"Come on, Snowflake. Give it a try."

She looked over at me with uncertainty in her eyes. I stood up and held her hand again. "We're just going to watch the lights change, and you know that I'll never let you get hurt, Elsa."

She huffed before she laid down. I smiled. We lay there for I don't know how long, our fingers intertwined, just looking at the lights changing and forgetting the world. Green to yellow, yellow to red, red to green, green to yellow, and so on. I looked over at Elsa. She looked completely calm, serene, halcyon, as if all of her troubles were swept away by doing something as simple as gazing up at the changing traffic lights. Then, she turned and looked at me. Our eyes locked, blue on blue, and I couldn't help but stare into her ensorcelling eyes. We were mooning into each other's eyes until bright blinking headlights and an almost deafening honk brought us back to Earth in a flash. Elsa screamed and we jumped up and ran to the sidewalk at once, barely escaping the approaching car.

I felt my face get paler, and I was catching my breath, but Elsa threw her head back laughing. I looked up.

"Are you really laughing?"

Her laughter broke down into a resplendent smile. "The laughing was for the sake of the movie, but it was also because that was certainly, doubtlessly exhilarating."

I grinned. "So it was fun?"

Her voice came out a bit husky. "Yea, Jack. It was fun."

There we were, just looking at each other and inhaling the crisp air of an autumn night.

"We should get going," Elsa said, shattering the silence.

"Yea. Guess we lost track of time." I checked my watch. North was probably worried sick. We started walking down the street, chatting about the trip.

"Did you read the book?"

"No," Elsa said, shaking her head.

"In the novel, there was an unexpected secret meeting of the lovers. It's a plot tryst."

Elsa groaned. "Why do you always find the need to tell puns?"

I chuckled. "I'm just very knowledgeable when it comes to puns."

Elsa laughed. "Well you should turn your focus to trying to become more knowledgeable in school."

"Well I did finish that geometry test with only one secant to lose."

Elsa shoved me playfully. "Do you even know what a secant is?"

I shrugged. "We're only one month into middle school, Elsa," I complained.

"A secant line of a curve is a line that intersects two points on the curve," she said, stopping in front of her house. I stopped in front of mine, but we were only inches away from each other, which made sense, since we were neighbors.

"I knew that," I muttered.

"Sure you did," she replied before kissing me on the cheek and waving goodbye as she swung open the gate and walked up the front steps to her home.

I remember sitting on my front steps for a long time, my hand on my cheek. Thinking about Elsa, what we were and what had just happened, until North opened the door and saw me just sitting there.

"Holy Christmas cookies, Jack, what do you think you're doing? You have the keys for Christmas's sake," he said, obviously tired and wanting to go back to dreaming about Christmas, candy canes, and whatnot.

I quickly tapped the front gate twice before I walked into the house and went to bed. But I couldn't sleep.

Nope, not that night, but hopefully I can on this plane. I put my travel pillow on my neck and closed my eyes.

XxXxXxX

To say the least, I was impressed by Tooth and Sandy's house. It was only two floors but it was still magnificent in its own modern way. From outside you can see the multiple balconies and porches, it really was a beautiful house. My room was right next to Emma's and also next to Tooth's. North and Sandy's rooms were across the hall. As I was unpacking some of my skiing and snowboarding gear and setting it aside, North knocked on the door.

"Jack? Can I come in?"

"Yea," I hollered.

North swung the door open and walked over to me. "This was in the mail pile," he said, handing me an envelope. "I was going to give it to you on the plane but I forgot." That was all he said before he left.

"Thanks," I called after him, though he was already out the door.

I closed the door behind him and flipped the envelope over and almost dropped it when I read what was on it. It said "To Jack" in handwriting that I could easily recognize. It was from Elsa. I sat down and took out the sheet of looseleaf in the envelope and started reading.

In Elsa's impossibly neat handwriting:

_When we were young, you were my guardian and I was your snowflake. We would load snow into our sisters' hoods and bring them over their heads, keeping them warm. Remember when we used to do that? They fell for it every single time. We would watch as the snow spilled over their heads and tumbled down their flabbergasted faces. Anna and Emma would chase us to the backyard, and we would stand by the house, panting for breath as we gasped for air laughing, our faces pale from the lack of oxygen. By the time they caught up, we were already prepared to blast them with dozens and dozens of snowballs. We always won the snowball fights, so long as we were on the same team. _

_Back then, nothing could separate the two of us. Well, nothing but a trip to the supermarket my mom or North dragged us along for. _

_If you hadn't noticed yet, we still go to the same school. You probably haven't noticed. I'm the Stage Crew Nerd while you're the Jock on the Hockey Team, and the captain of almost all of the winter sports at our school. You're doing the skating drills with the hockey team while I'm in the chem lab. I taught you how to skate. I would've been an amazing figure skater, or so Yvette told me, but one day you told me it embarrassed you when I schmeared you in a skating race at the ice rink. The thought of losing you scared the cream cheese out of me, so I stopped skating. I've only touched my skates maybe three or four times since then, because I'm worried you might still be embarrassed, though you wouldn't notice me anyway. _

_Junior high was not good to me. Or us. The status quo ripped us apart. We started sitting at different lunch tables. One of us would find a way to not be in the other's class throughout all of eighth and ninth grade, and if we were, we would find some sort of excuse to be on opposite sides of the room. By now, the teachers had us all figured out and we were only in English together, lucky me. _

_I can't blame you for not trying, though. There was that one time in October of eighth grade when you came to my house to urge me to try out for the figure skating team. I was so dumbfounded that you were even there (you hadn't spoken to me since March), that I just stood there looking at you until little tears sprung into my eyes. I think I scared you because you went home with a weird look in your eyes. What you didn't know is that I showed up for tryouts, but when I saw Nicole Kaufman there with her skates hung over her shoulder and her perfect hair tied up in a perfect ponytail, I ran to the bathroom and hid until my mom drove over to pick me up. _

_We're obviously still neighbors, but Anna and Emma have grown up a bit and don't fall for our pranks anymore. I see you and your buddies sitting in your backyard sometimes while I'm doing my homework, and before she went to a different school, Nicole Kaufman was always sitting on your lap. You're leaned up against the tree in your backyard, you know, the holly tree? We used to climb that tree and sit up there for hours. _

_I don't know, I guess I'm writing this letter to apologize. I'm sorry I didn't try out for the figure skating team. Sorry I didn't sign up for music club and perform a duet with you. Not that you're sorry. I'm happy for you, leading the hockey team and winning game after game. I just wish that maybe, just maybe, you'll look up from the base of the holly tree and see me watching you. Just so I can know that you understand._

My hands were shaking. I had so many mixed feelings and emotions, I wouldn't be surprised if I exploded right there. But I didn't.

I heard a knock on my door. Emma and Sandy walked in. Sandy signed something, but I only understood a third of it.

"We're going to the ice rink now!" Emma told me, ecstasy in her voice.

Sandy nodded and flashed me a glowing smile. I smiled back before grabbing my gear and walking with them to the car.

On the car ride to the rink, Sandy, Tooth, and North taught me and Emma a few things in sign.

_Wow, you guys are fast learners_, Sandy signed.

"Yep," I replied. _Yes, _Emma signed. _Showoff, _I signed in response. Everyone in the car laughed, except Emma.

Emma stared at me, confused. "Sandy didn't teach us that one," she complained, hating to be the one left in the dark. I kept my mouth shut the rest of the ride to the rink, despite Emma's protests, begging me to tell her what I signed.

All I could think about was Elsa's letter. The entire car ride. Thinking about several hundred words on a sheet of looseleaf. Several hundred words in handwriting that's almost as perfect as the person who wrote the letter.

XxXxXxX

I held onto Emma's hand as she stepped onto the ice, her knees wobbling a little. She looked up at me, and I could see that she was nervous.

"Jack, I'm scared," her voice a bit shaky.

I let out a small laugh. "You'll be fine."

After a half hour of coaching from me, Emma was skating soundly.

"Bet you can't catch me," I yelled, a few meters from where she was.

Emma grinned and started skating in my direction, and I turned to Tooth, pretending to be engaged in a conversation with her, but just when Emma was about to reach me, I skated out of the way.

Emma stomped in frustration. She started skating after me, chasing me around the rink. Emma was getting the hang of skating, and she was getting faster and faster. I looked behind me, sending a grin her way, and I got an aggravated frown in response. But that was a dumb move, since two milliseconds afterwards, I turned and crashed right into the rink barriers.

"Jack? Are you okay?" Tooth asked worriedly.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," I said, laughing lightly and getting up.

On the other hand, Emma was full out guffawing. "You should've-hahahahaha-seen the look on your-hahaha-face when you turned and saw the-hahahahahahahahahahahaha- barrier."

I gave her a small shove, but saved her before she could slip.

"You want hot chocolate?" I asked Emma. She nodded and I skated to the rink exit and walked over to the snack stand. After getting the hot chocolates, I walked back to where Emma sat and handed her the drink.

"Thank you!" she chirped.

North sat down next to me. "This guy is really good," he said, pointing to the man on the small stage. The seating was around the stage, so that people could perform or watch performances while taking a break from skating.

I turned my attention to the guy on the stage. He was standing by the microphone, singing.

North nudged me. "You should go next," he said.

"Wh-what?" That was all I could say.

_Yea, go for it, _Sandy signed.

"What makes you guys think I want to perform?"

"You want to perform?" A tall man asked.

"No." I shook my head, laughing a little. "No, I-"

"Oh come on, Jack, you're great, especially with your guitar. It's a shame you didn't bring it to the rink," he said, rubbing his chin.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Why would I even think to bring my guitar to an ice skating rink?

The tall man spoke up. "You can borrow mine."

"N-no," I stammered. "There's no way I'm going to-"

He pulled out a rather expensive looking acoustic guitar and handed it to me. "Very high quality, I trust you'll handle it well."

"Sweet." The guitar looked very fancy indeed.

I held the guitar. Though I rarely find time to play mine anymore, the feeling of a guitar in my hands felt very familiar.

"Fine maybe just one song," I said, and they all cheered.

I walked to the stage, the guitar in my hand. and sat on a stool by the microphone. I tapped the mic, just testing it. Then I started strumming the guitar strings and sang slowly, thinking of a certain someone.

_So far away from where you are_

_These miles have torn us worlds apart_

_And I miss you, yeah I miss you_

_So far away from where you are_

_I'm standing underneath the stars_

_And I wish you were here_

_I miss the years that were erased_

_I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face_

_I miss all the little things_

_I never thought that they'd mean everything to me_

_Yeah I miss you_

_And I wish you were here_

_I feel the beating of your heart_

_I see the shadows of your face_

_Just know that wherever you are_

_Yeah I miss you_

_And I wish you were here_

_I miss the years that were erased_

_I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face_

_I miss all the little things_

_I never thought that they'd mean everything to me_

_Yeah I miss you_

_And I wish you were here_

_So far away from where you are_

_These miles have torn us worlds apart_

_And I miss you, yeah I miss you_

_And I wish you were here _

I played the final note on the guitar and the small crowd applauded. I said "Thank you" into the mic before hastily stepping off the stage and hurrying back to the tall man to return the guitar.

"You're quite the performer," he said, putting the guitar back in his case.

"Haha, performer, pschh, nah, performer, no," I stammered.

"No, seriously Jack, you were really good," Tooth said. "But that song you chose."

Sandy nodded in agreement. _It sounded like you could really connect with the lyrics. Do you have someone special back home?_

"What? No," I said, shaking my head vigorously.

"Guys, give Jack a break," North said, patting my back. "You did great."

XxXxXxX

When I got back to my room, after we got back and ate dinner, I just sat there on my bed, reading Elsa's letter over and over again, trying to figure out how I felt. Ugh, I was so stupid, I was the reason why Elsa stopped skating for about five years. It was all my fault. Yes I remember filling Emma's hood with snow. Yes I remember climbing up that holly tree. Of course I notice you. I notice you all the time.

On the bright side, I think this letter means that Elsa's willing to try to go back to being friends again. It's not everything I wanted, but it was enough. We didn't have to be best friends or lovers, I just wanted to be friends again, it's all I'm asking for.

I ran my fingers through my hair. Could there be a more frustrating letter? I repeated my actions from a few nights before, slamming my fist into the wall, just once.

Not long later, my door swung open and hit the wall. The loud sound caused me to spin around and see Tooth at the doorway.

"Jack, is there something wrong?" she asked me.

"It's nothing."

"Stop lying. I heard a loud thump. My room is right next to this one, I know something's up."

I said nothing, but it was like Tooth could still read my emotions. She took a seat by the desk and spun in the chair to look at me.

"I'm not a psychologist, but I can tell that you're troubled by someone or something."

_Both_, I thought, holding my breath and hoping she wouldn't turn around and see the letter.

"Anyways," she continued, "I just want you to know that whenever something's really bothering me, I just take three deep breaths."

I rolled my eyes.

"And then I scream."

"What?" I asked, completely thrown off by those last four words.

She sighed. "I just scream. I stand on the balcony and scream in the Australian air."

I blinked.

"You should try it, it might help. I have a meeting tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep tonight. Night, Jack." That was all she said before walking out.

I read the letter one more time before walking out to the balcony. I stood there, my elbows resting on the railing, inhaling the night air, and staring at everything, the lights of the city, the starry sky, the glowing moon. I thought about it for a while, then, before I lost my courage, I took three breaths and screamed. One scream, loud and full of anger and irritation. I had to admit, it felt nice to just yell at the world, point fingers at life and address some sort of hatred and annoyance towards them. I smiled contently and tapped the balcony railing twice before walking back inside.

I walked to the corner of my room and picked up my guitar, then sat back on my bed, looking up at the moon. When I was a little kid, North once told me that there's a man in the moon. Man in the Moon, or Manny, was always there to listen to you and your thoughts. Well, I hope he heard that scream and got the idea.

I started strumming my guitar and sang a song quietly to myself.

_It's just another night and I'm staring at the moon_

_I saw a shooting star and thought of you_

_I sang a lullaby by the waterside and knew_

_If you were here, I'd sing to you_

_You're on the other side_

_As the skyline splits in two_

_Miles away from seeing you_

_But I can see the stars from America_

_I wonder, do you see them too?_

_So open your eyes and see_

_The way our horizons meet_

_And all of the lights will lead_

_Into the night with me_

_And I know these scars will bleed_

_But both of our hearts believe_

_All of these stars will guide us home_

_I can hear your heart on the radio beat_

_They're playing "Chasing Cars" and I thought of us_

_Back to the time you were lying next to me_

_I looked across and fell in love_

_So I took your hand_

_Back through lamp-lit streets and knew_

_Everything led back to you_

_So can you see the stars over Amsterdam?_

_Hear the song my heart is beating to_

_So open your eyes and see_

_The way our horizons meet_

_And all of the lights will lead_

_Into the night with me_

_And I know these scars will bleed_

_But both of our hearts believe_

_All of these stars will guide us home_

_And oh_

_And oh_

_And oh whoa_

_I can see the stars from America _

I know the song ended, but I couldn't stop. I continued playing and immediately thought of another song to sing. This time I sang a bit louder.

_All night staring at the ceiling_

_counting for minutes I've been feeling this way_

_So far away and so alone_

_But you know it's alright_

_I came to my senses_

_Letting go of my defenses_

_There's no way I'm giving up this time_

_Yeah, you know I'm right here_

_I'm not losing you this time_

_And I'm all in, nothing left to hide_

_I've fallen harder than a landslide_

_I spent a week away from you last night_

_And now I'm calling, calling out your name_

_Even if I lose the game, I'm all in_

_I'm all in tonight, yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life_

_There's no taking back_

_what we've got's too strong,_

_we've had each other's back for too long_

_There's no breaking up this time_

_And you know it's okay, I came to my senses_

_Letting go of my defenses-_

An irritated voice cut me off. "Yes, I get it, I get it, There's no way you're giving up this time, yea, yea, whatever. I'm trying to get some sleep. Remember I have a _meeting_ tomorrow? And I'm in the room _right_ next to yours?"

"Geez, Tooth you don't have to be so-"

"Put a lid on it, Frost," Tooth snapped before slamming the door shut and storming back to her room.

I shrugged and put my guitar away. But before I closed my eyes and fell asleep, I whispered one last thing: There's no way I'm giving up this time.

* * *

**Elsa's letter in the chapter was based off my classmate's piece in Beyond the Horizon (anthology mentioned in AN of chapter one). **

**Songs in this chapter:**

**-From Where You Are by Lifehouse**

**-All of the Stars by Ed Sheeran**

**-All In by Lifehouse**

**Anyways, thank you guys for reading and reviewing, you guys are amazing! DFTBA and check out the Perseid Meteor Shower tonight. :)**


	8. Chapter 8

Elsa's POV:

"You did it?" Anna asked.

"Yea," I replied, walking to the couch and taking a seat. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and Anna sat down next to me and handed me a glass of water. I took a sip before scrunching my nose.

"This needs more ice."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Elsa, it's winter."

I sighed. "I'm gonna go back to my room." Anna nodded and grabbed her phone, probably texting Kristoff.

I ran up the stairs and to my room, locking the door behind me. My iPod was the first thing I searched for in my room. It didn't take long, my silver iPod was on my bedside table, as usual. I shoved the earplugs in and turned up the music.

The letter was supposed to take my mind off Jack. Permanently. I did what I was supposed to do, I wrote the letter and slipped it through his door, but it's not working. I'm still thinking about Jack and the letter, the stupid letter. I'm here, all alone in my room, and ugh, I'm anticipating his answer. I know I'm not going to get more than a shrug from Jack, he's not going to react at all. He's halfway around the world and I'm dying on the inside, just waiting for an answer I'm not gonna get.

A few days later, I was sitting on a stool by the kitchen counter when the phone rang. I looked up from my book, but Mom said put down the cookie dough she was working on and walked to the phone.

"That's fine, I'll get it."

I continued reading as she picked up the phone. I could hear the slight buzzing from the person speaking.

"Yes. This is she," my mom replied. Then I heard the phone slip from her hand and hit the ground.

"Mom, what happened?"

I looked up and saw that she was about to follow the phone and fall to the floor, but I helped her into a chair.

"What's wrong?" I asked, holding her hand. She looked pale, she was definitely in shock.

I reached for my phone to dial 911, but Mom grabbed my arm.

"It's fine, I don't need an ambulance."

I looked at her worriedly. "Are you sure, Mom?"

She nodded, taking deep breaths.

"Who called? Wh-" I stopped when I saw the tears in my mother's eyes. She quickly got up and made her way up the stairs. I immediately felt guilty for pressing on and on about the phone call. It must have been devastating news.

I heard the locks click and the front door opened.

"Hey Dad. How was work?" I greeted.

"Hello Elsa. It was fine. You still have your nose stuck in that book?"

Dad walked to the kitchen, eyeing the abandoned cookie dough.

"Where's your mother?" he asked, noticing that Mom wasn't at her usual place in the kitchen.

I sighed. "About that, there was a phone call, she seemed pretty devastated by it."

His expression faltered and he headed towards the stairs. "Elsa, do your mother a favor and put the cookies in oven?"

"Sure," I said, saluting my father. He smiled and ran up the stairs.

I walked to the electric standing mixer and removed the bowl of dough. I peered at the dough and smiled. It was for dark chocolate pistachio cookies. I scooped the dough onto the cookie sheet, making sure to space them out and then put them in the oven before returning to reading.

It took a while, but eventually, Mom and Dad emerged from the stairs and walked to where I was sitting.

"Hey," my dad said quietly.

"Hi," I replied, and noticed that my mother still looked despondent from the phone call.

Mom spoke up and told me everything, and by the end of it, I was sobbing as my parents wrapped me in a hug. I pulled away. "Sorry," I said in between sobs. "I need some time alone." I ran up the stairs, the tears streaming down my face, and locked myself in my bedroom. I threw myself onto my bed and cried, suppressing some of my loud sobs with my pillow.

Yvette was in a car accident. She's in the hospital now, but she hasn't woken up yet. I continued crying. What if she doesn't wake up? If she just slips away? Yvette Keirstead was my coach, my mentor, we were so close. She was my mother's best friend, almost like a second mother to me. I can't lose her. It seems like I'm losing everyone. It's almost like everyone else is ferromagnetic, either being attracted to some, or completely repellent to others, and I'm that one person who isn't ferromagnetic, getting attached to few things, but never being able to keep holding on. Somehow I always manage to lose the few that I can hang onto, and that just sucks.

I continued crying my heart out until I heard the knock on my door.

"Elsa? Your mom and I are going to drive to the hospital and see Yvette. Do you want to go too?" my dad asked.

I got up. "Yes, I'll go, just give me a minute," I said as I wiped away my tears. I sniffed and got my jacket and my bag before joining my parents in the car.

I stopped as I fastened my seat belt. "Wait, what about Anna?"

"She's going on another date with Kristoff," my father said from the driver's seat.

"Oh. Okay. Does she know?" I asked.

My mom shook her head. "You can tell her now, or when she gets back," she said quietly.

I nodded texted Anna, telling her that we'd be at the hospital if she got home earlier than us. I'll tell her the rest of the story later.

When we got to the hospital, Mom ran to Yvette's room as soon as the nurse told us which one. I was about to go in with her, but Dad held me back.

"Let her have some time alone with her."

"Okay," I said meekly, taking a seat right next to the door.

Mom was taking this worse than I was. Yvette was her best friend, and I knew how it felt to lose your best friend, but seeing them unconscious on a hospital bed is by far a more sorrow affliction.

I peered through the window and saw Yvette lying on the hospital bed, as well as Mom sitting on a chair next to her, talking to her, even if she was unconscious. Some of her words were muffled by the door, but I could hear some of what Mom was saying.

It stayed quiet for a while, and then she spoke again. "It was the bird's nest. Remember that? Gee, I was so stupid back then. I was trying to return a baby bird to the nest, but it was all the way on the end of the branch. I returned the little bird to the rest of its family, but I fell." She chuckled lightly. "And broke my wrist. But you were there the entire time. There to call the ambulance, there waiting for me at the hospital, the first one to sign my cast, because you were there for me the entire time. You never left my side. You were always there for me back then, so I'm here for you now." Mom sighed before continuing. "And we would fight over the dumbest things. For example, who gets to write on the whiteboard and who has to hold the marker cap. Gee, that was so dumb," she said giggling softly. "And then that time when you started giving Elsa skating lessons and I offered to pay, but you refused to accept payment. We were both so stubborn, and I felt the need to win, so I'll admit that I recruited help from Jack Frost. That boy was a mastermind when it came to schemes and pranks. I guess it was also unwise of me to ask him for help, but I did end up paying you. My only regret is not paying you more. You were a spectacular teacher, and thanks to you, Elsa's a wonderful skater. You're one of the reasons why Elsa's the perfect little angel that she is."

That's when I choked up and started sobbing again. She was right, I had Yvette to thank. She taught me everything I knew about skating. She must've been so disappointed when I told her I didn't want to skate anymore. I wish I told her that I started skating again. We could've went to the rink together and everything. I wish I could tell her that and apologize for quitting in the first place. So many things left unsaid, and I don't even know if Yvette's going to make it.

The door opened and Mom walked out. I looked up and she nodded, so I walked into the hospital room. Yvette was on the hospital bed. I could see little cuts and scars from the accident, and I just cried even more. Her blonde hair was just like it always was. Yvette liked to keep her golden blonde locks in a bun, when she was at home, when she was out and about, and when she was on the ice.

I had to talk to her, so I pulled myself together.

"Yvette, you were my skating coach, and you have no idea how much I admire you. You're the best skater I know, and I couldn't ask for a better mentor. I know you were disappointed when I told you I wanted to stop skating, and I'm really sorry about that. Thinking back on it now, I quit for a pretty dumb reason. Because of a skating race." I took a deep breath. "But now I'm back on the ice. Giving up on skating was one of the dumbest things I've ever done. Though I wish I told you… before the accident. Stay with me, Yvette. You have no idea how much I need you, and Mom even more so. Your best friend needs you. Your angel on the ice needs you, too." I smiled, that was what Yvette and Mom called me. The nickname annoyed me a little at first, but they kept using it, so it stuck. "Yvette, we can't lose you. We love you, you're too important, I can't lose you, stay, stay. Stay." My voice dropped down to a whisper. "Please."

I gave her hand one last light touch before walking out and closing the door behind me. Mom and Dad were waiting for me outside Yvette's room, and Mom smiled. "Your short speech was great, Elsa."

"Speech?" I shook my head. "That wasn't- it was nothing compared to yours, Mom."

Dad enveloped the three of us in a hug again, and together, we walked back to the car and drove home.

Every morning, I'd check to see if Yvette got any better. Every day after school, I'd drive and visit her at the hospital and just sit there, talking to her about anything and anyone. Including Jack. On Thursday, I told her about him and the letter, Australia and all. I knew she couldn't give me advice at the moment, but I still told her. Not that I was expecting to get anywhere with it.

On Friday, I entered the hospital, and Yvette still hadn't woken up yet. I took my usual place in the chair and put my bookbag next to me. I took out a sheet of looseleaf from my bag.

"Hey, Yvette. We umm, started on poetry in English, so I thought I'd read to you the first poem we read together as a class. I know how much you liked poetry. Especially Robert Frost. So here it is:

When I go up through the mowing field,

The headless aftermath,

Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,

Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,

The whir of sober birds

Up from the tangle of withered weeds

Is sadder than any words

A tree beside the wall stands bare,

But a leaf that lingered brown,

Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,

Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth

By picking the faded blue

Of the last remaining aster flower

To carry again to you.

My phone buzzed and it was Mom. I checked the time, and it was getting late.

"I'll see you soon, Yvette," I said before leaving. Outside the room, I looked back at Yvette's unconscious figure and prayed that she woke up, whether it was today, tomorrow, the day after, or sometime after that, I just wanted her back in my life.


	9. Chapter 9

Jack's POV:

Australia was fun, but I was glad to be back in America. I've been gone for a week, and now all I wanted to do was talk to Elsa.

I waited for Elsa by the school entrance for a while. I checked my watch. 8:29. Gosh, where is she? Usually she was early to school. I waited 30 more seconds before turning and deciding to go to class. But that was the exact moment when Elsa came in through the entrance, wearing a white trench coat, her hair in a bun. She quickly dashed down the hallway to her first class of the day, and I ran the opposite way to go to mine.

**XxXxXxX**

I figured Elsa wouldn't be in a rush after school, so I waited for her outside. I watched as hundreds of students ran straight out the exit, but I was waiting for a certain platinum blonde. When I spotted Elsa, I walked to her.

"Hey," I said.

She didn't reply or look at me, she kept walking.

Slightly taken aback, I walked alongside her and added, "Um, I got your letter."

I got nothing, and it was starting to get on my nerves, I was tired of being completely invisible to her.

"You know, the letter, the sheet of looseleaf, when we were young, you were my-"

"Yea, I know what letter you're talking about," Elsa snapped.

I was relieved that she answered, but worried since her reply was slightly cold. I also caught a flash of some sort of ambiance in her eyes, something along the lines of grief, defeat and bereavement.

"Well, that was a bit harsh," I said.

She stopped at the corner of the block and made a right turn.

"Elsa, where are you going? Home's the other way."

She shook her head. "I need to go this way."

I shrugged and started walking with her, but she stopped me.

"Alone. I need to go alone. I'm sorry."

"What?" I asked, bewildered.

"Jack, I just need to go alone. That's all."

"Elsa, if I could just-"

"No, you may not, and I need to go." She started walking away and then the frustration took over me, and I did something that I would later regret.

"Honestly, Elsa, what the heck?" I shouted as she walked away. "I'm tired of being completely invisible to you. I'm tired of being shut out. When I got your letter, I thought we could be friends again, but clearly you don't want to. I thought you came around, but here we are again on square one. I'm sick of being ignored, can we please jus-"

Elsa stopped in her tracks."Jack, you don't unders-"

"Yes, I do, Your letter-"

"This isn't about the letter."

"Then what the hell is this about!?"

"Just please, Jack, I need to go, don't follow me."

That's when I saw the expression on her face and the tears creeping to her eyes. I stepped forward to her, but she pulled back and ran down the block and out of sight.

I wanted to follow her, but I stepped back and leaned on the lamppost. Shit, what did I just do? My thoughts were echoed by a shout.

"Jackson Overland Frost, _what_ did you just do?" Anna shouted. She and Kristoff were making their way to my side of the street, she looked absolutely livid, and when she got to me, she shoved me.

I stumbled but caught myself. Anna raised her fist and I braced myself for the punch, but it never happened. I opened my eyes. Kristoff was holding her back, Anna struggling against his grip.

"Calm down, feisty pants."

"Okay, okay, I'm calm," she said.

Anna broke free from Kristoff and stormed up to me. "You insensitive son of a-"

"Anna, remember, he doesn't know," Kristoff reminded.

"I don't know what?" I asked.

Anna sighed. "Come with me." So I walked along with Anna and Kristoff, in the direction that Elsa went in.

Anna stopped and I looked at the building. "The hospital?"

Anna nodded, and we walked in. The nurse told us which room, and we took the elevator up. Anna led us down the hallways and stopped in front of a room, ushering me to a window. I peered through the window, and looked at who was in the hospital bed. It was Yvette Keirstead. Sitting in a chair by her bed was Elsa.

"She was in a car crash," Anna explained. "She hasn't woken up yet, and Elsa's scared out of her mind for her."

"That's why Elsa-"

"Uh huh," Anna said, nodding.

"Gosh, I'm such an idiot," I mumbled.

"Uh huh," Kristoff said, matching Anna and nodding. "With Australia, the letter, and Yvette, you had terrible timing, bro."

"And you were sooo insensitive." Anna added. "You made what she was going through a lot worse."

I looked back at the window. Elsa was reading something to Yvette out of her notebook. I recognized it as her English notebook, and realized she was reading a poem for her.

"She's worried sick about Yvette, but I'm worried about her," Anna said, and I could see the legitimate concern in her eyes. "Elsa checks to see if Yvette has woken up, first thing in the morning, and when she finds out that she hasn't, she loses her appetite and barely touches her breakfast. She's quiet during lunch, but at least she eats, but after school, she's been going to the hospital to check on Yvette everyday. Sometimes she doesn't come home until very late at night, and sometimes she just skips dinner." Anna sighed before continuing. "You know that I curse sometimes, but I heard her swearing under her breath one or two times these past couple of days. She's getting a bit angry, but most of all, she's upset, and I'm afraid that it'll get worse and she'll develop depression or something."

I frowned. Anna was right. Elsa was going through a lot, and since I made it worse, I need to apologize and make it up for her. I thought about how to do that, and the gears in my mind clicked.

"Guys, I need to go," I said, making my way to the elevators.

"Wait, where are you going?" Anna asked.

"I'm gonna make it up to her." I replied, and hopped on the elevator.

As soon as I got out of the hospital, I started running back to school. I was praying that the entrance was still open and the person I wanted to see was still there. I got to the school entrance, the doors were still open, so I quickly ran in and headed to the auditorium. Outside the auditorium doors, there was a short line of students.

There was a table set up outside the doors, and recognized the person sitting on the table, swinging her legs back and forth, seemingly drenched in boredom.

"Hey Hayley," I said.

"Hey. I know what you're thinking, why in the world am I here, and the answer is that Mr. Vanwright punished me for absolutely no reason at all, so here I am, helping out with his problems. Detention is so stupid," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. "The frickin' assembly is tomorrow for heaven's sake, and he's having the auditions for performances today."

I nodded. Mr. Vanwright, the music teacher, was notorious for being a procrastinator. He was supposed to have a special student performance at tomorrow's school assembly, and he's currently holding the auditions.

"Did most of them go already? The line's pretty short," I pointed out.

Hayley nodded. "He turned down a lot of them, you know how picky he is. But he's narrowing it down to several people, and he's gonna make a decision from there."

I stood in line behind the last person.

"Jack, you're gonna audition?" Hayley asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Yep."

"May I ask why?"

"I need to apologize to someone."

"And this is the way?"

"Yea, and hopefully it'll work," I replied, moving up on the line.

"What are you going to do? Tell jokes?" she asked. "Because I don't think that's going to lead to forgiveness."

I shook my head.

"Then what is it?"

"Guess."

Hayley groaned. "You know I hate doing this."

"What, guessing?" I said, walking as the line moved up again.

"Yes," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"But it's so easy."

"Haha, very funny," Hayley said, the sarcasm dripping in her voice. Every time somebody says that it's easy, I don't guess correctly until the tenth try."

"No, honestly, Hayley. What I'm gonna do is probably the most cliche thing in the world."

"You're gonna sing? No, wait, you're gonna play piano."

"Yes and yes."

"You're gonna do both?!" she half shrieked.

"Yay! You got it right on the first try!" I said half heartedly.

"Don't try to change the subject," she snapped. "You're doing both?"

I nodded.

"Who is it for?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Who are you performing for? Who are you going to pour your heart and soul into your performance for?"

"Guess."

"Oh, _hellll no_. I literally _just_ played this game." She stomped alongside me as we moved up the line.

"Then I'm not telling," I said, smugly.

"Whatever, you're up next, good luck with Mr. Vanwright." She looked behind us. "And it seems like you're the last one auditioning."

I sighed and walked into the auditorium.

"Name," Mr. Vanwright said, directing all of his attention to the clipboard.

"Jack Frost."

"Ja-" he looked up, astonished. "Is this a joke?"

"Nope," I said as I walked to the piano and sat by the instrument.

"Next," Mr. Vanwright called, clearly thinking that I wasn't serious about auditioning.

"Mr. Vanwright, I was the last one on line, there was no one behind me. And I'm serious about auditioning, I can assure you that this isn't a prank. I'm gonna sing and play the piano."

Mr. Vanwright stared at me, trying to see if I was telling the truth. "How do I know if you're not doing this to let your friend escape detention?"

"Because I'm right here!" Hayley shouted from one of the balcony section seats. She cupped her hands around her mouth so that she could be heard clearly. "And I intend on staying for the entire time, including this audition," she said, smirking.

"Hey, you can't stay and watch, that's so-" I protested, but Mr. Vanwright cut me off.

"She's welcome to watch your audition. You may begin, Mr. Frost."

"But Hayley-"

Mr. Vanwright gave me a stern look and I sighed and flexed my fingers before placing them on the piano keys. I started playing the notes from memory, (it was a song that I was thinking about a lot in Australia) and sang.

_I know you're somewhere out there_

_Somewhere far away_

_I want you back_

_I want you back_

_My neighbors think I'm crazy_

_But they don't understand_

_You're all I had_

_You're all I had_

_At night when the stars light up my room_

_I sit by myself talking to the moon._

_Trying to get to you_

_In hopes you're on the other side talking to me too._

_Or am I a fool who sits alone talking to the moon?_

_Ohoooo..._

_I'm feeling like I'm-_

"That's enough, Mr. Frost," Mr. Vanwright said.

I stopped in the middle of the verse. "Um, okay," I said, hearing the disappointment in my own voice. I just lost my chance to make it up to Elsa.

Hayley on the other hand was applauding enthusiastically as she made her way down the auditorium stairs. "You were great, Jack!"

She gave me a hug.

"You really mean it?" I asked.

"Of course I do. Why would I lie to you about that, Jack? You're immensely talented, no doubt about it."

"Thanks Hayley," I said, grinning.

Mr. Vanwright cleared his throat. "As Hayley said, you are exceptionally talented, and I never thought I'd say this in a million years, but Jack Frost, you get to perform during the school assembly tomorrow."

I blinked. Wait, what just happened? Did Mr. Vanwright just say that I-

"Yes!" I shouted as I jumped up and pumped my fist in the air. "Thanks, Mr. Vanwright, um, have a good day!" I said. I high-fived Hayley and said goodbye before leaving the school happily. Things were going accordingly, and tomorrow afternoon, I'll get the chance to redeem myself.


End file.
